ZEISS sponsors “SIGHT – The Story of Vision”
The television special will premiere in 2016 in the United States and then will be shown in Europe, Latin America and Asia.
Aalen, September 25th, 2015
SIGHT – The Story of Vision is an international documentary about the importance of good vision, the progress in eye care and vision solutions over the past 800 years, the impact of the global vision crisis on life and work; and most importantly, the efforts taken by individuals and organizations to fight this crisis.
This documentary was previewed at a ZEISS sponsored event at Vision Expo West in Las Vegas and received excited reviews from the 300 vision industry professionals and media representatives who attended the event.
The SIGHT project is an international initiative, involving award winning filmmakers, an advisory board of medical, business and science advisors, and collaboratively sponsored by several major corporations and organizations from the vision care industry. Initiator and filmmaker Kris Koenig and Southern Oregon Public Television, affiliated with the Public Broadcasting Service, recognize that this industry-wide initiative has brought companies together with a common objective to educate and raise awareness of the significant challenges in providing good quality eye care and vision solutions to the millions of people affected by poor vision.
ZEISS is a major underwriter of the SIGHT story and sole sponsor of the corresponding full-dome planetarium show SEEING: A Photon’s Journey Across Space and Mind.
One of the most precious gifts we are given: vision
Natural vision is one of life’s most precious gifts. About 80 per cent of all information we process comes through our eyes. For the hundreds of millions of people around the world who have limited or no access to eye care and are visually impaired, for the millions who have no opportunity to get treatment for preventable blindness, and for those that simply can’t access simple vision solutions, the ability to fully participate in life is limited.
The SIGHT: The Story of Vision recounts the centuries-old history and science of vision with all its implications for humanity and society. “Our ability to see determines our quality of life, yet many of us take our sight for granted. A great portion of the world’s population struggles to see, and none of us will be able to escape vision loss in our lifetime”, says Kris Koenig.
Lack of access to eye care and vision solutions are still global problems
Poor vision is the number one reason for children leaving school early. Poor vision reduces work time by up ten years and has further consequences for life, education and productivity at work. 90 per cent of the visually impaired or blind people with no access to modern eye and vision care live in developing countries. The World Health Organization estimates that the world’s gross-domestic product could be $270 Billion USD higher if all of these people could get refractive correction and access to medical eye care.
“ZEISS has been supporting initiatives to fight preventable blindness for many years now and is engaged in providing people in the developing world with access to modern eye care”, says Karen Roberts, vice president at ZEISS Vision Care business group and a member of the advisory board for the project. “Creating more awareness for low vision, vision impairment and preventable blindness as real world health issues is a major step in helping fight this issue.”
SIGHT: The Story of Vision will reveal the vision crisis that is taking place across the globe and the amazing individuals who fight to overcome it. The documentary will present the research focused on curing blindness and improving low vision in our aging population, and cover the intersection of optics, digital science and medicine that hold promises for all of us to keep our sight,” explained Koenig. “The film will also show the history of using optics to correct vision and the fashion that keeps glasses on our noses.”
Over the past 18 months, the film crew traveled to the United States, India, Africa, Australia, Vietnam, China, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Peru, Germany and Italy to capture fascinating information and stories about vision on film. This also allowed them to demonstrate the global nature of the vision crisis.
SIGHT: The Story of Vision – a television special – will premiere in 2016 in the United States and then will be shown by other broadcasters in Europe, Latin America and Asia; ultimately be seen by millions of viewers around the world.
SEEING: A Photon’s Journey Across Space and Mind planetariums show, also scheduled for premiere in 2016, will tell the story of a photon’s journey across the galaxy to a young stargazer’s eye then across her mind. The story threads teach how photons trigger our vision and how our minds work to see. This film will be made available to the 1,200 planetariums around the world through Zeiss’ generous underwriting of the SIGHT project.
Press contact
ZEISS Vision Care
Joachim Kuss, Director Communications
Phone +49 151 42112288
E-Mail: joachim .kuss @zeiss .com