Artists' Television Access

Fragmentation and Flux in Recent Haitian Film

Friday, November 16, 2012, 8:00 pm, $6-$10

Participating Artists: Maksaens Denis, Guy Regis Jr, Zaka, Romel Jean-Pierre, Alex Art Louis, Jean-Guerly Pétion, Louis Ebby Angel

In Person: Zaka and Jean-Guerly Pétion

Curator: Ilona Berger

Audio visual performance following screenings by Jean-Guerly Pétion

Fragmentation and Flux is a program of work by Haitian filmmakers responding to radical shifts in their physical, political, and social landscapes. These shifts can be characterized as both collisions and collusions, from the disaster capitalism merely accelerated by the earthquake, to the syncretism that has always made up Haitian culture.

Proceeds from the screening will benefit Jakmel Ekspresyons, a grassroots, volunteer run arts organization that works on a model of solidarity to provide opportunities for training and exhibition in the arts. Jakmel Ekspresyons is welcoming to all and is a vital safe space for local LGBTQ and disabled artists. They are raising funds to pay their rent, make their building disabled accessible, and build their digital arts lab.

An American volunteer doctor working in the sea side town Jacmel, experiences catharsis In “Zaka” Chery Claudel’s genre and gender crossing 9 hopes for Haiti . Romel Jean-Pierre’s Al fé Tet Ou is an experimental requiem created in Port au Prince after the earthquake.Maksaen Denis’s Deville/ Devil follows a young group of activists in Port au Prince armed with paint, rollers, and tape who take back their city from the relentless branding by the Digicel telecommunications corporation. In Maksaen Denis’s and Guy Regis Jr’s M Le President we see a presidential candidate slowly change from what he appears to be to who he really is. With a hair brush for a mic and a cut out painted bottle for a camera, the investigative Teleghetto journalists roam the streets, tent camps and and voting booths of Port au Prince. Zaka’s La Vie Dwol takes us into a day in the life of Sedjo, a load carrier facing challenges from every conceivable direction. In Ebby Angel Louis’s sly narrative short, Miss Body Plastic, Dezilia who has grand ambitions to win a beauty contest and use the winnings to enact an environmental clean up program much to the consternation of the rest of the town who think she is delusional. Somewhere in the diaspora, young Anton tries to divine our ecological trajectory with his Russian Tarot Cards In Jean Guerly Pétion’s, A Reading.

program:

9 Hopes for Haiti, Zaka, 9.22 min

Tele Ghetto Kokorat (Street Children) 3.43 min

Al Fé tét Ou, Romel Jean-Pierre, 10.21 min

Teleghetto 1 year After 9 min

M Le President, Maksaens Denis and Guy Regis Jr, 6.00 minutes

Miss Body Plastik Angel Ebby Louis 19.35 minutes

Deville/Devil, Maksaens Denis, 6.00 minutes

Lavie Dwol (A Strange Life), Zaka, 18.28

A Reading, Jean Guerly Pétion 9.40

 


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