THE PRINCIPALITY OF MONACO’S LEADING FILM EVENT MONACO CHARITY FILM FESTIVAL STRIKES AN EMOTIONAL CHORD WITH AUDIENCES

Paris – 8 March 2007 - The Monaco Charity Film Festival which will run from 14th to 19th May 2007, today announced that after just one year it has successfully achieved its founding principles of supporting emerging, young film talent and inspiring audiences to engage with films presented at the Festival. “We have succeeded,” summarised Festival Founder and Director Vincente-Andres Zaragoza “not only in promoting young filmmakers but in showing films with stories that can make an audience engage. It was our sincere intent to make our Festival an important platform and after receiving hundreds of letters from a diverse range of attendees of last year’s event we feel vindicated. For example, I was absolutely thrilled to hear from a 23 year old American Marine who had served in Iraq thanking us for how our Festival ‘had inspired him to have a more outward look on life. To think about helping others instead of always being selfish and just thinking about oneself’.

The Monaco Charity Film Festival was founded in 2006 with the founding belief that the heart of any community is its youth. By deciding to focus the Festival’s attention on this group its aim is to promote and support young film talent together with raising funds for deserving charities working in the specific area of youth development across the globe. In general, funding for the Festival comes through the Pentium Fund, sponsors and donations from individuals. The net proceeds raised by the Festival in 2007 will benefit Mission Enfrance, an international organisation whose mission is to assist the rights of every child to an education and to promote better living conditions for vulnerable and exploited children at risk all over the world.

In addition to its charitable donations the Monaco Charity Film Festival also encourages attendees to become personally involved with the charities supported by the Festival. The culmination of this initiative saw one of last year’s attendees spending her holiday in a Philippine jail teaching art and photography to young children instead of skiing in Gstaad. It was Mr Vincente-Andres Zaragoza’s own 20 year old daughter, Pia. The culmination of Pia’s experiences in the Philippines has seen her launch the foundation PROJECT ARTIST to provide housing for children incarcerated in Philippine jails for the crime of having no home. The story of her time spent in the Philippines, straight out of the lives of these children, will be show during the Festival on May 18, 2007 at the Salle Debussy - Hotel de Paris, Monaco.

Vincente-Andres Zaragoza said “These two people provide tangible proof that the Monaco Charity Film Festival is reflecting it’s founding commitments of more than a showcase and has struck an emotional chord with attendees. Our efforts are but a drop in the ocean, but this drop is starting to make a wave with today's youth which is why this year we will inaugurate “Our Voice” an event dedicated to young talent from as many countries as possible which will take place after our evening screening on May 16.”

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For further information please contact:
Ms. Isabel Echeverry
Telephone number: +001 310 498 3610
Email: isabel@rebercovington.net

Mr. Vicente-Andres Zaragoza
Telephone: +336 07 51 88 88
Email: vz@pentiumgroup.com