While Bar Refaeli skipped across the red carpet at the Cannes Festival, the millionaire principality Monaco held a different kind of movie festival in which Hollywood stars and European millionaires gathered for a benefit for cancer-stricken Israeli children.
The event was dedicated to “Zichron Menachem,” an Israeli association supporting children with cancer and their families. The event, sponsored by the Monaco International Film Festival, the only event in this genre to gather participants for the sake of ill children.
The Philippine billionaire Vincente Saragosa, who has initiated and funded the festival for the past three years, invited the heads of “Zichron Menachem” to participate in the event aside the organization he leads.
Millions of dollars in funds were raised for both organizations. “Zichron Menachem’s” fundraiser, Mickey Vasser succeeded in touching the hearts of listeners when he told the story of a girl named Michal, an Israeli girl with Leukemia, who surmounted the disease with the help and support she received from the association’s volunteers.
Later, a short film was shown in which two Israeli mothers tell the stories of how their children’s cancer was cured.
Among the guests of honor at the event were two Oscar-winners; Tommy Lee Jones and Sean Penn, who are both socially active.
