The United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) have launched the 2018 PLURAL+ Youth Video Festival. The festival allows young people to express their opinions about migration and racism through brief video clips, with the aim of contributing to social change against intolerance and divisions.
The 2018 edition of an annual project aimed at encouraging youth worldwide to share their views on migration, diversity and social inclusion was presented in Tunis by the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
The PLURAL+ Youth Video Festival is aimed at young people up to 25 years of age and invites them to create short video clips in which they express their opinions on social integration and the fight against racism. The project aims to make the young people agents of positive social change in a world often marked by intolerance and cultural divisions.
A platform of opinions
To this end, the founder of the project, Jordi Torrent, said videos will be accepted for the 2018 festival starting at the end of February through June 7. The videos must be at least one minute long and no longer than five minutes.
The festival's specific goal is to provide a platform for the international distribution of the videos made by youth worldwide on the themes covered as part of the project. Prizes will be awarded based on age categories, with a $1,000 award in each category that Torrent said will be handed out at the PROJECT+ 2018 Fall Awards Ceremony in New York.
A festival to raise awareness on migrants
"Through this festival, IOM aims to raise societal awareness on the status of migrants through the eyes of young people, to see their view," said IOM Tunisia Chief of Mission Lorena Lando. "Short videos offer a very sincere young look at themes considered 'adult'," she said.
Lando invited young Tunisians to participate in the initiative, as there has been lower levels of participation from Maghreb-area youth, than that of European and Middle Eastern youth. In Tunis, a screening of last year's project winners was held. Since 2009, more than 1,500 young people from 110 countries worldwide have participated in the PLURAL+ Youth Video Festival. The winning videos have been screened in dozens of film festivals and broadcast on television networks worldwide. In 2017, PLURAL+ received more than 320 video submissions from 167 countries. (A PLURAL+ flyer)