The Cigarette That Saved Lives
Posted by Marc | 5-12-2011 21:28 | Category: Government, Violence
This is not an anti-smoking campaign. The same goes for the opposite.
It all started with the personal tragedy of Vanessa Lynch. After the murder of her father she sought ways of fighting crime in her country South Africa. She started an organization: the DNA Project. Her father’s murderers went free because DNA evidence left at the crime scene was discarded, destroyed and not properly collected.
In South Africa, the National DNA Database has under 130.000 DNA profiles and there are only two labs that can perform DNA profiling onforensic samples.
“I would like to believe that by making a difference, I can at least ensure that my father’s life was not taken in vain by creating something good out of something so awful. Perhaps the fulfillment of the objectives of the DNA Project will ensure that all those lives in SA that have been violated and taken from us so violently, may too be given the respect that they and their families deserve — it’s time the majority took back, from what the small minority in this country have taken away from us.”
The video above is the second video ever produced for the DNA project.
The ad is paradoxical: a cigarette saves lives in a commercial where the lead woman dies.
The Cigarette That Saved Lives is directed by Bruno Bossi from Egg Films:
“It came as a surprise, as it does to most people, that we do not have the legislative framework in place to more fully use DNA profiling for crime scene investigation in our country,”
The Cigarette That Saved Lives is currently screening on local broadcasters as part of the 16 Days of Activism for No Violence Against Women and Children between 25 November (International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women) and 10 December 2011 (International Human Rights Day).
“Awareness is one of our biggest problems,” says Vanessa. “You can have the laws and systems in place but you only have once chance to gather the evidence before it’s lost forever.”
Everyone involved with the shoot worked pro bono, from the crew to the rental houses.
Below the first video, from 2009. Directed by Sophia Dewberry: Leaving Something Behind
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The DNA Project
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