‘IF the G8 were kids’

Hollywood’s Kirk Jones directs debut G8 spoof for IF campaign.

Kirk Jones, creator of ‘What to expect when you’re expecting’, has directed his debut political spoof, a short film made especially for the Enough Food for Everyone IF campaign.

By casting children to play the roles of G8 leaders, including David Cameron, Barack Obama and Angela Merkel, the film uses children speaking the truth to point out the ludicrous faults of the adult world. When they are served lunch with one plate missing, the shortage of food is easily fixed – they re-distribute their fish fingers and everyone eats.

If only things were that simple? Well in fact the world does produce enough food for everyone. IF all the food in the world was shared equally, there would be enough for every woman, man and child to consume 2,700 calories every day. That’s more than enough, as it’s the equivalent of almost five Big Macs or 33 boiled eggs every day.*

So if there’s enough food for everyone, why does one person in eight go to bed hungry every night? Many people can’t get their hands on enough nutritious food – they can’t grow enough or afford it. The IF campaign, launched earlier this year aims to change that by persuading G8 leaders to tackle some of the underlying causes of hunger.

The first of a series, the short film highlights the injustice of hunger and urges people to sign up to the campaign to persuade governments to take action to ensure that everyone can have enough food. 

Kirk Jones said:

“I committed to this project when I started to hear the figures. Two million children die from malnutrition every year. Unpaid taxes by multinational companies cost the poorest countries $160 billion every year and the biggest myth of all is that there is not enough food for everyone in the world."

"I've worked with children on feature films and commercials for a number of years but it was still a challenge to find eight children to play world leaders complete with their original accents. We took our time casting but ended up with a great bunch of kids who really helped to sell the idea that solving life-threatening problems like world hunger can be as simple as child's play IF governments want to make it happen.

“We had a lot of fun shooting the films as though they were a real movie complete with helicopters and stately location.”

Enough food for everyone:

• IF governments keep their promises on aid, invest to stop children dying from malnutrition and help the poorest people feed themselves through investment in small farmers.
• IF governments stop big companies dodging tax in poor countries, so that millions of people can free themselves from hunger.
• IF we stop poor farmers being forced off their land, and use the available agricultural land to grow food for people, not biofuels for cars.
• IF we force governments and investors to be honest and open about the deals they make in the poorest countries that stop people getting enough food.

The first film can be viewed now with further films going live in the run up to the G8 summit in June.

For more information please contact: Gemma Parkin, Media Manager, Enough Food for Everyone IF: T: +44 (0)207 095 5452/ +44 (0)7988 482649/ E: [email protected] / [email protected]

About Enough Food for Everyone IF:

Enough Food for Everyone IF is a coalition of 150 organisations and counting which have joined together to campaign for action by the G8 on the issue of global hunger. The last time we worked together at this scale was for Make Poverty History. Now that the G8 group of world leaders are returning to the UK, we are demanding they take action on hunger. 2013 won’t be the end of hunger, but it could be the beginning of the end. Join us at www.enoughfoodif.org

*Based on the most recent figures available from Food and Agriculture Organisation. Of course men, women and children have different calorie requirements, body mass indexes and participate in various degrees of activity, whether they have a sedentary lifestyle or perhaps have a more active and energy intense type of employment, such as farmers. This is why the FAO place huge importance on calculating and an accurate understanding of the levels of energy that is required for all humans living in different circumstances. A Big Mac is 550 calories. A boiled egg is 80 calories.

WATCH THE FILM ONLINE http://bit.ly/YzVC6p