The Three Amigos AIDS Prevention PSAS Win Four Major Awards

The Three Amigos, a series of twenty (20) world-class animated Public Service Announcements (PSAs) designed to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS throughout the world, has been awarded the Gold REMI Award and the Silver REMI Award at Worldfest®, the CINE Special Jury Award and the Telly Award (Bronze).

(PRWEB) May 4, 2005 -- The Three Amigos, a series of twenty (20) world-class animated Public Service Announcements (PSAs) designed to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS throughout the world, has been awarded the Gold REMI Award and the Silver REMI Award at Worldfest®, the CINE Special Jury Award and the Telly Award (Bronze).

Worldfest®: The Three Amigos was awarded the Gold REMI award in the Use of Humor and the Silver REMI Award in the Animation categories at WorldFest, Houston. The awards to The Three Amigos were presented in Houston, Texas on April 30, 2005. Worldfest®, the premiere film and video festival in North America, has discovered since 1967 some of the top directors and filmmakers in the world today, having presented awards to George Lucas, David Lynch, Spike Lee, Ridley Scott, Steven Spielberg and Oliver Stone, among many others.

CINE: The Three Amigos was awarded the CINE Special Jury Award for the best entry" over all categories of commercials and PSAs, winning over high-budget commercials created for major multi-national corporations. The award was presented at a ceremony held at the National Geographic Society in Washington, DC on April 15, 2005. This award follows the CINE Golden Eagle awarded by the same organization to The Three Amigos earlier this year. The award is presented by CINE, founded in 1957 to distinguish excellence in professional filmmaking. Prior recipients of CINE Golden Eagles include Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and many others distinguished for their work with the moving image. Other winners of the Special Jury Award this year included Disney Educational Productions, National Geographic Television & Film, Clear Channel, NOVA/WGBH, PBS, CNN Productions and Stanford University.

TELLY: The Telly Awards honour outstanding local, regional, and cable television commercials and programs, as well as the finest video and film productions. Since 1978, the Telly Awards mission has been to strengthen the visual arts community by inspiring, promoting, and supporting creativity. This year the Telly Awards received over 11,000 entries.

The Three Amigos is a groundbreaking HIV/AIDS prevention strategy, strongly supported by Nobel Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who has called the PSAs a significant contribution". The series has been created by volunteers. The series compromises Public Service Announcements (PSAs) of 60, 30, 20 and 15 seconds each. Featuring three animated (2D) condom characters, the PSAs use comedy as a medium.

Since completion in March, 2004, The Three Amigos has received 29 international recognitions, including the above four awards and the CINE Golden Eagle, three Communicator Crystal Awards, the Grand Festival Prize in Berkeley, California, an Honourable Mention at the Chris Awards, two Golden Reels (Gold), a Silver Hugo in Chicago and the ZoieFest Award. The Three Amigos has been Official Selections at several festivals, including the Cologne Shorts Festival, the Ottawa International Animation Festival, CINEME in Chicago, the XV International AIDS Conference in Bangkok, Vue DAfrique in Montreal, Ten Years of Freedom in New York, the Durban Film Festival and the One World Festival in Ottawa.

The PSAs have been re-created in 41 languages. One PSA per language is currently streaming on the Three Amigos web-site. Further information is available at www.thethreeamigos.org

For additional information and interviews please contact:

In Canada: Firdaus J. Kharas. Producer. Tel: (1)(613) 820-6121 Fax: (1)(613) 820-4679 e-mail: info@thethreeamigos.org

In South Africa: Brent Quinn. Producer. Tel: +2711 880 5015 Fax: +2711 880 5125 Cell: +27 (0)82 556 8074 e-mail: quintet@icon.co.za

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