Harrowing Film Highlights Dangers of Fake Medicine

Ben Lacour shoots a harrowing film in the African townships highlighting the thriving illegal industry surrounding fake medicine and the irreversible dangers it creates for the planet's poorest and most vulnerable people.

Fake medicine kills 700,000 people across the world each year.

The film makes clear that fake medicine is exactly that, it is not out of date medicine, it is deliberately manufactured fake medicine sold on the streets to the poorest people in the townships, often causing death.

This goes unnoticed by the government.

The film was shot in the townships, with locals as cast, using their own homes to film in.

The film was shot in one day. Ben wrote, directed and DP’d the film.

“When Sophie Hamdad, owner of SOPROD told me about her project it grabbed my attention instantly,” said Ben. “It was straight to the point. There was no twist or classic narrative commercial strategy, this project was about re-creating the awful reality as it is and to honestly portray its raw, emotional and frightening truth.”

The project was commissioned by SOPROD in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, and the Ministry of Health, and is part of a campaign surrounding Covid and fake medicine.