New York, NY [April 5, 2007] – Tribeca Film Festival founders Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal,
and Craig Hatkoff joined SOS campaign founder Kevin Wall today to announce that seven SOS short
films will premiere on the Festival’s opening evening of April 25, 2007. SOS is the campaign
behind the Live Earth global concert series on July 7, 2007. The mission of the SOS Short Films
Program is to create a series of educational and compelling short films that highlight the
problems of, and engage people with solutions for, the global climate crisis.
Tribeca’s opening night gala, hosted by former Vice President Al Gore, will be held at the
BMCC TriPAC and will include musical performances by Live Earth music acts. This event
marks the official launch of the SOS Short Films Program. The evening is being sponsored by
General Motors (GM) with additional support coming from National Geographic.
“Global warming is a generational challenge requiring both U.S. leadership and a global
response. The SOS Short Films Program harnesses some of the world's most creative minds to
educate, inform and inspire people across the globe to solve the climate crisis," former Vice
President Gore said. "Premiering the SOS films at Tribeca will ensure that these pieces will be
viewed all over the world for years to come – and hopefully they will help spur to action the next
generation of international leaders to join the effort to solve the climate crisis."
Gore is co-chair of the Live Earth concerts that Kevin Wall is producing.
“The global climate crisis is the paramount challenge facing humanity, and the goal of the SOS
campaign and Live Earth concerts is to trigger a groundswell of people worldwide who will
make solving the climate crisis a priority and make meaningful changes in their lives,” said
Kevin Wall, founder of the SOS campaign and producer of Live Earth. “Tribeca provides the
ideal audience and platform for the SOS message. Just like music, films have the power to
inspire people to change themselves and the world around them.”
“The Tribeca Film Festival was founded with a mission to collectively improve our community.
The very concept of SOS – entertainment effecting social change – is at the roots of our festival
and we can’t think of a better way to open this year than by world premiering the SOS Short
Film Program,” said Jane Rosenthal, Co-Founder of the Festival. “Films have the ability to take
an issue and galvanize people to act. We commend SOS for reaching out to filmmakers to use
their medium to bring awareness to the climate crisis. We are proud to be a part of this and
hopeful that SOS will inspire significant environmental changes.”
SOS has commissioned 60 award-winning filmmakers from wide-ranging genres and mediums,
including feature films, documentaries, music videos, commercials and animation to create
provocative shorts of no more than 10 minutes in length. The films range in tone from factual
and dramatic to fictional and comedic. The Tribeca Film Festival will select seven of these films
to premiere at the festival, which will be announced at the opening press conference for the
Tribeca Film Festival on April 22, 2007.
SOS has engaged many of the industry’s most prominent filmmakers including:
- Jonathan Glazer, Director, Birth, Sexy Beast;
- Kevin MacDonald, Director, Last King of Scotland;
- Abel Ferrera, Director, King of New York;
- Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, Directors, Oscar-nominated Jesus Camp;
- Aardman Animation, Producers, Wallace and Gromit;
- Amy Berg, Director, Oscar-nominated Deliver Us From Evil; and
- Ari Sandel, Director, Oscar-winning, West Bank Story.
The full slate of filmmakers participating in the SOS Short Film Program will be announced at a
later date.
In addition to the Tribeca Film Festival, the SOS films will be shown at the Live Earth concerts
around the world on July 7, 2007, either on stage screens during band transitions or by broadcast
partners who will screen them in advance of, as well as on the day of, the Live Earth concerts.
About the Tribeca Film Festival
The Tribeca Film Festival was founded in 2002 by Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal, and Craig
Hatkoff after the attacks on the World Trade Center to help economically and culturally
revitalize Lower Manhattan through an annual celebration of film, music, and culture. The
Festival’s mission is to assist filmmakers to reach the broadest possible audience, enable the
international film community and the general public to experience the power of film, and to
promote New York City as a major filmmaking center.
In its first five years, the festival attracted over one and a half million attendees from the US and
abroad and created more than $325 million in economic activity for New York City.
The sixth annual Tribeca Film Festival will run from April 25th to May 6th, 2007. The Festival
is anchored in Tribeca with additional venues throughout Manhattan, and includes film
screenings, special events, concerts, a family street fair, and Tribeca Talks panel discussions. For
more information on this year’s festival, as well as for highlights on the festival and filmmakers
as it takes place, please visit www.tribecafilmfestival.org.
About the SOS Campaign and Live Earth Concerts
The mission of the SOS campaign is to trigger a mass movement to combat the climate crisis.
The SOS campaign will engage people in every corner of the planet through solutions-based
short films, celebrity PSAs, books, an interactive web experience, and most importantly, through
Live Earth, a 24-hour concert on 7/7/07 spanning all 7 continents that will bring together more
than 100 of the world’s top music acts.
Live Earth alone is expected to reach an audience of more than 2 billion people through concert
attendance and worldwide broadcasts. The Live Earth audience, and the proceeds from the
concerts, will form the foundation for a new, multi-year global effort to combat the climate crisis
led by The Alliance for Climate Protection and its Chair, Vice President Al Gore. The SOS
campaign was founded by Kevin Wall, who won an Emmy as Worldwide Executive Producer of
Live 8.
The SOS campaign’s identity is based on the international Morse code signal for distress: three
dots, followed by three dashes, followed by three dots. SOS is the world’s most urgent, universal
message, and the campaign will use that signal as a continuous “call to action” to prompt
individuals, corporations and governments around the world to respond to our climate crisis with
sustained action. For more information on the SOS campaign and Live Earth concerts, visit:
www.SaveOurSelves.com or www.LiveEarth.MSN.com.
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