Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp

Award Winner!

Institute of Tropical Medicine - Switching The Poles - Peru

Awards

• Silver Dolphin at the Corporate Media & TV Festival in Cannes - 2014
• intermedia-Globe Silver Award at the World Media Festival in Hamburg - 2015
• Special Award ‘Hand in hand’ at the World Media Festival in Hamburg - 2015

Summary

For this assignment our crews filmed in Benin, Burkina Faso, Peru, India and Cambodia. With the smallest crew - film director and cameraman - and a limited stay, we not only interviewed all people involved in a wide variety of local projects, we also managed to catch the atmosphere and the beauty at every location.

Some feat considering that we were in-and-out of some countries after a day and a half - including airport administration. Every single shot has later been used in the editing.

And with interviews in Khmer and Indic languages, pre-cutting the content was quite a challenge.

The result is 'Switching the Poles', an Award Winning documentary about the unique capacity building program of the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp in developing countries, supported by the Belgian Development Cooperation.

This part of the documentary tells the story of leishmaniasis, one of many neglected diseases.

Peru has the third highest incidence of skin leishmaniasis in the world. Leishmaniasis is a parasitic infection transmitted by the bites of sand flies. It's treatable, but can cause stigmatizing scars. Although it affects millions of people in more than 80 countries, it is still a neglected disease.