Ben Affleck directed a video for UNHCR's new Gimme Shelter campaign for victims of renewed violence in eastern Congo.
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From the United Nations High Commission on Refugees
The UN refugee agency, with the help of American actor-director Ben Affleck and British rock legend Sir Mick Jagger, on Wednesday launched a major new campaign to raise US$23 million to help tens of thousands of displaced Congolese civilians. At the centre of the campaign is the "Gimme Shelter" video directed by Affleck and filmed by John Toll, both Academy Award winners. The short film, which was due to be formally released at a ceremony in New York on Wednesday, is set to the classic Rolling Stones song, Gimme Shelter, which Jagger and the group donated to the campaign. The footage was shot last month in Democratic Republic of the Congo's (DRC) strife-torn North Kivu province, where some 250,000 civilians have fled for their lives since fighting resumed in August between government forces and rebel troops. "We made this film in order to focus attention on the humanitarian crisis in the DRC at a time when too much of the world is indifferent or looking the other way," said Affleck. "The suffering and loss we've all seen first-hand is staggering - it is beyond belief."