U.N. poverty films premiere

The plight of the world’s poorest was highlighted Thursday as “8” (Huit), a collection of short movies inspired by the U.N.’s Millennium Goals, premiered at the Rome Film Festival.

The movie, touching on themes such as the fight against poverty and hunger, child mortality, the environment and education, is made of eight segments by eight directors, including Jane Campion and Wim Wenders, who were in Rome to present the project.

Stories in the film -- whose other directors were Mira Nair, Abderrahmane Sissako, Gus Van Sant, Gaspar Noe, Jan Kounen and Gael Garcia Bernal -- include the life of an African man who has AIDS, the struggle of a pregnant woman in the Amazon rain forest who cannot afford to travel to a hospital and a devastating drought in Australia.

The U.N.’s Millennium Development Goals were adopted by world leaders in 2000 to cut poverty and disease and improve healthcare and education for the world’s poor by 2015.