The Time for Peace Film & Music Awards launched in New York in 1994 by Marion Einbeck and Robert Einbeck, is a response to the need for popularizing films and music recognized for their artistic quality that further the ideals of humanist values such as tolerance, better understanding between people, respect for differences, and human solidarity.
The award has previously been presented to filmmakers such as Steven Spielberg for Schindler's List and later Amistad, Michael Radford for Il Postino, Scott Hicks for Shine, Caroline Link for Jenseits der Stille (Beyond Silence), Jan Sverak for Kolya, actor Robin Williams for his performance as Sean McGuire in Good Will Hunting, and this year to Edward Zwick for Blood Diamond; in music the award has gone to artists such as Stevie Wonder for Conversation Peace, Jewel for her songs Pieces of You and A Night Without Amor, Charles Trenet for his lifetime achievement, and in 2007 to Charles Aznavour for Colore Ma Vie, to mention only a few ones.
The films and music are selected by the Time for Peace Board of Directors comprised of professionals in the film and music industries and Time for Peace, and the winners by a jury composed of ambassadors to the UN who mark their votes on a special form after screening the DVDs and listening to the CDs.
The intention of Time for Peace is to inspire hope through films and music and to show how heroes who aspire to what is the best in a human life could serve as examples for a large audience.
The idea underlying the award is that art and culture are important catalysts. Films and music have a strong impact on an understanding of the world, while their creation can potentially have a positive influence. Today's show business artists relay messages that are heard by millions of people who, in addition to their role as spectators, are able to integrate the actor's roles into their own lives.
The paramount objective for social impact, which is the mission of the Time for Peace Film & Music Awards, is to motivate the film industry to produce films that convey humanist values and to make the public, and young people in particular, receptive to living these humanist values in their everyday life guided by the cinema.
The responsibility of the Time for Peace Film & Music Awards is to continue and expand its efforts so that people will come to associate pop culture with social understanding, cooperation, and constructive behavior.
Its goal is:
To establish a strategy for the creation of an Internet database of cinematographic work of high artistic quality that provides humanist values that call attention to a culture of tolerance, respect for differences, a better understanding between human beings, solidarity, and the preservation of the environment…
To put a pedagogic curriculum in place that allows school teachers and university faculty to use cinematography in the teaching of their courses so that in their daily lives their students will be imbued with the works of the great film directors and inspired by their values.
To create a Time for Peace Film foundation that will supervise the development of the cinematographic database and the implantation of an international educational system.