AIDS drama becomes in-flight movie on World AIDS Day
Last Updated: Friday, December 1, 2006 | 1:16 PM ET
CBC Arts
An award-winning film about a boy who loses his parents to AIDS will be shown on airliners around the world beginning Friday, as the international community marks World AIDS Day.
Air Canada, British Airways and more than 30 other commercial airlines will show the film Beat the Drum as part of an international fundraising campaign.
Organizers estimate that the movie will be shown on more than 40,000 flights throughout December, beginning Friday.
Beat the Drum calls attention to the plight of African children orphaned by AIDS.
The film centres on a young, South African village boy named Musa whose parents die from AIDS. He sets out looking for his relatives in urban Johannesburg, where he eventually becomes determined to make a life for himself and educate others about the disease.
After screening at film festivals around the world, Beat the Drum has won more than two dozen prizes, including an audience honour from Montreal's World Film Festival in 2004 and a best international feature prize from Toronto's ReelWorld Film Festival in 2005.
Entertainment In Motion, the film's distributor and a specialist in non-theatrical markets such as airlines, is donating 50 per cent of the film's gross revenues to charities benefitting AIDS orphans in Africa.
Officials estimate that AIDS has killed 25 million people since it was first identified 25 years ago and that 40 million people are living with HIV or AIDS today.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan is among the officials taking part in initiatives underway around the world Friday in an effort to foster action and bolster the fight against the disease.
The Canadian government announced on Friday that it would spend an extra $120 million this year to fight AIDS.
