Documentary film wins local award
The international documentary, A Billion Lives, won Best International Documentary Film at the Jozi Film Festival.
The fifth annual Jozi Film Festival closed with an awards evening in Johannesburg earlier this week and the four-day festival screened 40 films selected from 300 entries.
The closing event of the festival honoured the best films in five categories and saw the international documentary feature film A Billion Lives, directed by Aaron Biebert winning Best International Documentary Film.
The controversial documentary revealed that the World Health Organisation projects that a billion people will die this century from smoking. The film's director and executive producer, Aaron Biebert travelled across four continents, interviewing medical doctors, scientists, technologists and policy makers from major international health organizations to answer some of the many questions on the safety and health concerns around vaping. The independently produced film aimed to highlight tobacco alternatives in order to save lives.
Local and international experts weighed in with their views on the subject. The film uncovered that recent compelling studies have found e-cigarettes and vapour products are 95% safer than smoking cigarettes and can save smoking related pre-mature deaths by 21%.
Leading experts and health heavyweights such as Dr Derek Yach, Former Executive Director of the World Health Organization (WHO) and currently Chief Health Officer of the Vitality Institute as well as Dr Delon Human, former President of the World Medical Association (WMA) and adviser to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon feature as compelling interviewees.
Biebert became an advocate of 'smoker's choice' after witnessing his friend die from lung cancer.
The film also reveals that nicotine is not a killer but tar and burning tobacco is and e-cigarettes can assist in quitting or smoking less. E-cigarettes do not contain tobacco, tar, or burning and combustion.
A Billion Lives shows how pharmaceutical companies, anti-smoking advocacy groups, tobacco companies, and even governments are to blame for the disinformation, over-regulation and banning of e-cigarettes worldwide.
- Press Release