Congratulations to VII Photo and Doctors Without Borders for its recent News and Documentary Emmy nomination for its Starved for Attention project.  We were lucky to collaborate with them both this past yearand showcase 4 of the 8 videos on Telegraph21 to help promote the work and raise awareness of international hunger and poverty issues.  Starved for Attention is nominated in the documentaries sub-category in New Approaches to News and Documentary Programming.

Here is an excerpt from our October interview with The U.S Standard and A Double Standard Director Jessica Dimmock.

t21: What inspired you to create this two-part film: The U.S Standard and A Double Standard for the Starved for Attention campaign?
JD: This film was made for Doctors Without Borders as a part of a series about global malnutrition. This specific film was made to illustrate the gross double standard that exists in the United States’ approach to food aid. The first part of the film, which I did, looks at the high- quality foods that are provided as part of the WIC program to low-income families domestically. The second part, which Antonin did, looks at the mostly corn and soy-based food that is exported to poorer nations as part of the U.S. Food Aid package.

t21: How did you decide the specific stories and profiles to showcase?
JD: I focused on three women in a rural Pennsylvania town in order to show a small crosssection of the type of families that are eligible for the WIC program, how it helps them, how they use it, and the obstacles they may face. I felt that this town and the population had many aspects which allowed it to serve as an example of many towns around America.

t21: Do you think this campaign has been successful?
JD: I think the campaign has been very successful. The combination of all of the films that are part of the Starved For Attention campaign approach the issue of childhood malnutrition in a way that defies stereotypes and highlights some of the complicated aspects of malnutrition in different parts of the world. I think it has been very educational.

t21: In terms of your own work, what is your intention and hope for what you are doing?
JD: I hope to create images and video that appeal to people on an emotional level, and allow them to more fully think about the circumstances of the people I photograph. I hope to allow people the opportunity to think about a subject in a slightly different way than they would have expected.