FIA Foundation wins Special Prize at World Road Safety Film Festival
24.02.2010
The FIA Foundation has won the Special Prize at the World Road Safety Film Festival for its documentary “Turning Point”, featuring Michelle Yeoh.
The Award was made for the film’s achievement in making the international community aware of the urgent need to reduce road traffic deaths and injuries in emerging and developing countries. ‘Turning Point’, directed by Richard Stanley for the FIA Foundation, was broadcast globally on BBC World in May 2009. A follow up film ‘A Vaccine for Road Safety’ was also broadcast worldwide by the BBC. Both films followed movie actor Michelle Yeoh, the global ambassador for the Make Roads Safe campaign, on a fact finding journey across several continents. The presentation of the Special Prize was made by Robert Trottein, President of Laser International, and Mr Azzedine Chraibi, Director General of the Moroccan Committee on Prevention of Road Traffic Accidents (CNPACM) to the FIA Foundation’s Director of Campaigns, Rita Cuypers.
The Festival took place on 18 and 19 February in Marrakesh and was co-organised by the NGO Laser International and the Moroccan Committee on Prevention of Road Traffic Accidents (CNPACM). Following on from the First Ministerial Road Safety Conference in Moscow in November 2009, the objective of the festival is to exchange best practice in road safety communication and to create an international multimedia database to help countries with their road traffic accident prevention activities as a contribution to a Decade of Action on Global Road Safety .
Twenty-seven countries from across the world participated and submitted films for the categories Documentary, Education, Innovation, TV spots, Prevention of Risks in the Professional Sector and Road Safety Films made by Young People for the Young. Prizes were awarded for each category and for each region.
The host country, Morocco, was represented by Minister of Transport Karim Ghellab who also introduced the coinciding Moroccan National Road Safety Day. The Moroccan government put in place a road safety strategy in 2004 with the aim of achieving a sustainable reduction of road deaths and serious injuries. It is now hoped that with the passage of new road traffic legislation on 14 January 2010, Morocco will be able to tackle and enforce problematic road traffic behaviour such as speeding, disrespecting road traffic signs and signals, drink driving, dangerous overtaking and not respecting pedestrians on the road. The new legislation will enter into force in October leaving the government time to deploy a communication strategy to improve the behaviour of road users and to make them familiar with the new regulations.