Jehane Noujaim, award-winning documentary filmmaker of Control Room, with help of the prestigious TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) prize, is seeking filmmakers – professional or amateur – everywhere to produce films for Pangea Day, a landmark, one-day, global film event showcasing short films from around the world on May 10, 2008.

People are divided by borders, race, religion, and conflict, but most of all by misunderstanding and mistrust. Pangea Day plans to use the power of film to bring the world a little closer together. YouTube.com (http://www.youtube.com/) is supporting Pangea Day by hosting the trailer on its global homepage, as well as all nine of its international homepages, to encourage filmmakers to submit videos.

In virtually every culture, movies hold an extraordinary power to inspire human emotion, from sadness and fear to laughter and hope. They connect us powerfully to the characters on screen and enable us to see the world through their eyes. At one time or another, no matter where we live or what language we speak, nearly all of us have experienced that magical transformation.

"Movies alone can’t change the world, but the people who watch them can," says Noujaim. "If you had the world’s attention for five minutes, what story would you tell?" At these screenings, Pangea hopes to give people immediate, practical opportunities to put their inspiration to work through diverse organizations working to solve the challenges that – sooner or later – touch everyone on the planet.

On May 10, 2008, Pangea Day venues in Cairo, Dharamsala, Jerusalem, Kigali, London, New York City, Ramallah and Rio de Janeiro will be linked to produce a 4-hour program of powerful films, visionary speakers, and uplifting music. More importantly, the world will be watching as the program will be broadcast live through the Internet, television, digital cinemas, and mobile phones.

The TED community is also rallying around the project, in particular with the support of Avenue A | Razorfish, an interactive agency who has generously donated its creative services to Pangea Day, which include the creation of the web site (www.pangeaday.org) and digital advertising and marketing services. TEDsters are also supporting the project financially, including a USD 1 million pledge from TED Curator Chris Anderson.

"My foundation has pledged support for the project because of my conviction that all the toughest global issues – war, poverty, public health, global warming – have at their core a failure of moral imagination. If enough of us could abandon us/them thinking and really see people from all cultures as part of one connected whole, the world would find the political will to solve these problems,” says Anderson. “Film has the power to inspire that moral imagination, and Pangea Day will be a transformative way of harnessing that power."

How to produce and submit your short film:

Pangea Day films are meant to be visual stories, ones that can be understood despite language barriers, and therefore should not rely on dialogue. If dialogue is required, Pangea Day organizers are asking that videos have English subtitles so that all films can be translated. In order to show as many videos as possible, submissions must be 5 minutes or less.

Filmmakers with submissions should upload their films at http://www.youtube.com/group/pangeaday and register their film at www.pangeaday.org.

A panel of jurors, led by Noujaim and other renowned members of the film community, will review all submissions and select the winning films to be screened on Pangea Day.