Akimbo’s First Ever Film Festival: Millennium Development Goals at the Movies!

Rewire is highlighting Akimbo's first ever film festival, focused on each of the eight Millennium Development Goals as a way to increase awareness of the issues about which the goals are related.

Rewire is featuring the first ever film series by Akimbo, the blog of the International Women’s Health Coalition.

This week, the largest gathering of world leaders in at least a decade will come together at the United Nations headquarters in New York.  The topic will not be military conflicts or emergency relief efforts, but rather, what governments can do to better the lives of everyday people throughout the world.

With only five years left until the 2015 deadline to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called on the men and women who lead our nations to increase their efforts toward the commitments they agreed to in 2000.  As the world watches to see what will be said and done about the Goals, we at Akimbo will be hosting our first ever online film series, focused on the eight Millennium Development Goals which strive for improvements in:

  • poverty and hunger;
  • universal education;
  • gender equality;
  • child health;
  • maternal health;
  • HIV/AIDS;
  • environmental sustainability;
  • and global partnerships

The idea is this: We’ll pair up popular movies with the Goals they address, discussing the film’s strengths or weaknesses on that given topic. Films to be discussed include “Persepolis,” “March of the Penguins,” “Slumdog Millionaire,” and more. The daily multi-media posts will make you think differently about films you already know and love, and perhaps make you add a few new titles to your must-see list ! You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll crave buttery popcorn—and you just might learn a thing or two.