Spike Lee short
film focuses on HIV

Director Spike Lee is one of eight directors who worked on All the Invisible Children, a movie showing out of competition at the Venice Film Festival. The film consists of seven shorts portraying the plight of children in different parts of the world, including child soldiers and street urchins.

Lee's short recounts the story of a Brooklyn, N.Y., teenager who is the daughter of two drug addicts and who is HIV-positive. The child finds out about her illness from companions at school, not from her parents.

Other directors who worked on the film include Emir Kusturica, Ridley Scott, and John Woo.

In connection with the film, the Italian foreign affairs ministry has started an initiative giving special support to the U.N. children's agency UNICEF and to the U.N. World Food Program, a Rome-based organization that helps feed the hungry. (AP)