UNFPA DOCUMENTARY WINS AWARD IN HAVANA FILM FESTIVAL

16 December 1998

Press Release
POP/694

UNFPA DOCUMENTARY WINS AWARD IN HAVANA FILM FESTIVAL

19981216 NEW YORK, 15 December (UNFPA) -- For the first time ever for a United Nations institution, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has won a documentary award at the XX International Festival of the New Latin American Films in Havana. The documentary film "Así es esta historia" (Such is this history), received the award given by the Cuban National Union of Writers and Artists. The Union described it as "a moving document of solidarity and humanitarianism", referring to the project with indigenous women in Peru that the film depicts.

The film shows scenes from a project in the Peruvian region of Alto Cuzco that tested a literacy method where the women learn to read and write while reflecting on their reproductive and sexual health, gender roles and their status in the family and community. The initiative was a first for bilingual literacy in Spanish and Quechua, the local language.

The method of this project in Peru is also used in the Bolivian provinces of Chuquisaca and Potosi where a similar four-year project is being funded with $3 million from the United Nations Foundation, established by Ted Turner. Similar projects are planned in Paraguay and Mexico.

Reacting to the award, UNFPA's Executive Director Dr. Nafis Sadik today praised the director of the documentary, Rodrigo Ivan Sepulveda, and Isabel Hernandez, the producer, on behalf of UNFPA and General Coordinator of the literacy project. Both of them were in Havana to receive the award.

"This is a great encouragement for UNFPA's work to publicize the plight of women", Dr. Sadik said, adding: "This recognition will help the Fund's work on behalf of women's empowerment and their reproductive health and rights. The documentary gives viewers an opportunity to reflect on issues that are all too often neglected." She thanked the Writers and Artists Union for the award, and the people involved for "their truly gifted work in making the documentary".

The Cuban National Union of Writers and Artists said the UNFPA film highlights efforts to save women destined to a life of childbearing and farming. "It is an important document that denounces the violation of the human rights of women, without which there cannot be human rights in the world", the Union's jury said.

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The ceremony was chaired by Alfredo Guevara, President of the XX Festival and of the Cuban Film Institute, and Carlos Martí, President of the Union of Writers and Artists.

"Así es esta historia" (In Quechua, "Ahinam Chay") was competing with 208 documentary films and hundreds of films of fiction and animation in the XX International Festival of the New Latin American Films, the main annual event of its type in Latin America.

Dr. Sadik noted that the recognition was a welcome support for the upcoming five-year review of the Programme of Action, agreed to by about 180 States at the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo, 1994. An ICPD+5 review forum will be convened in The Hague, Netherlands, from 8 to 12 February 1999. Indigenous populations' health and rights are part of the ICPD. The review process will culminate in a special session of the United Nations General Assembly from 30 June to 2 July 1999.

For further information contact Jesper Juul Jensen at (212) 297-5040 or Corrie Shanahan at (212) 297-5023.

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