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Washington D.C., June 28, 2005 – A new television Public Service Announcement cautioning women about the risk of drinking alcohol while pregnant produced by Women in Film's Los Angeles Chapter for the National Organization on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (NOFAS) has won the 2005 Gold Aurora Award.
Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) is America’s leading known preventable cause of mental retardation and birth defects. Even though FASD is completely preventable when pregnant women abstain from alcohol, as many as 32,000 infants are born with alcohol-related problems each year. NOFAS advises women who are pregnant or could be pregnant to abstain from alcohol.
The PSA, entitled “Infinite Power” emphasizes the importance of a woman’s role in the health of her baby and features multi-talented artist Gina Loring, best known as the top ranking poet from the 2002 National Poetry Slam, Russell Simmons’ HBO Def Poetry Jam and BET’s Lyric Cafe. The thirty second PSA includes powerful imagery and the lines, “You will call me mamma. Dependent on me; deciding your fate...Leaving the party behind with your interest in mind, I channel you healthy…Choose an alcohol-free pregnancy. The risks to your baby are many.” The empowering PSA targets women of all cultures, ethnicities and backgrounds. It cautions women to abstain from alcohol use during pregnancy to avoid any risk of alcohol-related birth defects.
The PSA was developed by Women In Film, Los Angeles as part of their award-winning Public Service Announcement Production Program and is both informative and appealing to a general audience. “I am so proud of everyone who has donated their time and talent in creating ‘Infinite Power’,” said Tobie Loomis, the director and co-writer of the PSA.
The Aurora Awards is an international competition designed to recognize excellence in the film and video industries. It specifically targets programs and commercials that would not normally have the opportunity to compete on a national level, by focusing on non-national commercials, regional or special interest entertainment and corporate sponsored film and video. The Aurora Awards recognizes individuals in the film and video industries who have achieved the ability to captivate their audiences with the displays produced from their own creative forces.
Women In Film was founded in Los Angeles by Tichi Wilkerson Kassel, the former Publisher and Editor–in-Chief of The Hollywood Reporter and a group of women who represented various disciplines within the film and television industries. WIF's purpose is to empower, promote, nurture, and mentor women in the industry through a network of valuable contacts, events, and programs including the Women In Film Mentor Program and the Public Service Announcement Production Program, among others.
NOFAS President Tom Donaldson praised the achievement, saying, “The Women In Film PSA for NOFAS is an artistically stunning message about the risk of alcohol during pregnancy and deserves the utmost recognition. From a public health perspective, the PSA is an invaluable asset in the effort to educate the public about a largely unrecognized, significant health concern. We sincerely hope that our work with Women in Film will affect women’s choices while they are pregnant. The critical next step is to ensure that the PSA is aired on all broadcast and cable networks and in television markets across the country.”
You can view the PSA in Quicktime low resolution and high resolution or Windows Media low resolution and high resolution.
For more information please visit, Women In Film at www.wif.org and the Aurora Awards at http://www.auroraawards.com/.
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