|
|
**********************
Going
South, a film about North American women looking for
sex and sun in Haiti
"... An estimated 600,000 Western women have engaged in travel
sex from 1980 to the present..."
http://www.beaumonde.net/headingsouth.shtml
Older
white women join Kenya's sex tourists
By Jeremy Clarke, Nov. 26, 2007, Reuters
********
Europeans
charged over child 'abductions' in Chad, October 31,
2007, Kuwait
Times ("...Sixteen Europeans charged over the
alleged abduction of 103 children sat in a dusty cell in eastern
Chad yesterday, as a row escalated in France over the failure
to prevent the operation.
Nine French nationals, including six members of the charity Zoe's
Ark and three journalists, were charged late Monday with "kidnapping
minors" and "fraud" for attempting to fly the children
from the Chad-Darfur border to France, prosecutors in the eastern
town of Abeche said....")
French
Aid Workers Sentenced and
French
Aid Workers Charged with kidnapping scheme in Chad
********
Although the term "sex tourism" usually conjures up
planeloads of dirty old men flying to Bangkok, it is the opposite
in Gambia. Gambia bound planes, according to a recent Reuters
article, "regularly arrive with a high proportion of women
traveling alone." Britain was singled out as a country of
origin for many of these female sex tourists, but the phenomenon
appears to be European in general. http://www.gadling.com/
2006/05/20/sex-tourism -not
-just-for-men-anymore/
********
In many African countries, it is common to see older white men
with young local black women, but Gambia, along with some resorts
in neighboring Senegal, has earned a name as a place for older
European women to meet young African men....60-70 percent of visitors
to one of the main tourist areas near the
capital Banjul were there for "sun relaxation and cheap sex."
**************
Two
Quebecers arrested for sexual assaults on minors in Haiti
*******************
*********************
The
Dreamthe
principlethework of HLLN"...HLLN
dreams of a world based on principles, values, mutual respect,
equal application of laws, cooperation instead of competition
and on peaceful co-existence and acts on it. We put forth these
ideas, on behalf of voiceless Haitians, through a unique and unprecedented
combination of art
and activism,
networking, sharing info on radio interviews, our
Ezili Danto listserves and by circulating our original
"Haitian Perspective" writings. We make presentations
at congressional briefings and at international events, such as
An
Evening of Solidarity with Bolivarian Venezuela.
With the Ezili
Danto Witness Project, HLLN documents eyewitness testimonies
of the common men and women in Haiti suffering, under this US-installed
regime, the greatest forms of terror and exclusion since the days
of slavery; conducts learning forums on Haiti (The "To-Tell-The-Truth-About-Haiti"
Forums), and , in general, brings the
voices against occupation, endless poverty and exclusion
in Haiti directly to governments officials, international policymakers,
human rights organizations, journalists, the corporate and alternative
media, schools and universities, solidarity networks. We are often
quoted in major alternative and even the corporate papers and
press influencing the current thinking of readers today."
HLLN, November 9, 2005.
See, The Nescafé
machine, Common Sense, John Maxwell Sunday, November 06, 2005
, quoting
HLLN's chairperson, Marguerite Laurent, Esq.
********************************************** |
| Film
festival goes on the road in Haiti
The annual film festival in Jacmel,
Haiti, will take the show on the road
this year, visiting some of the country's most poverty-stricken
neighborhoods
By JACQUELINE CHARLES, jcharles@MiamiHerald.com
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/world/haiti/
A Port-au-Prince slum where armed gangs and ricocheting bullets
are a way of
life hardly seems a good place to go to the movies. But for Haiti-born
hip-hop artist Wyclef Jean and organizers of the Festival Film
Jakmel --
which is in full swing this week -- the Cité Soleil slum
is not only the
ideal place for a movie theater, but also a whisper of hope for
their most
daring social experiment yet.
* On the Web | Festival
Film Jackmel Trailer
http://www.festivalfilmjakmel.com/2006-festival/trailer.php
*Audio | Hip-hop star Wyclef Jean talks about the festival
http://www.miami.com/multimedia/miami/news/archive/audio/1125wyclef.html
***********************
Wyclef Jean's 'Cry Haiti' Video
Links:
***********************
* Video
| Clip from 'Cry Haiti': Wyclef Jean visits the slums of
Port-au-Prince
http://www.miami.com/multimedia/miami/news/archive/video/Wyclef1.html
* Video
| Clip from 'Cry Haiti': Jean meets with international power
brokers
http://www.miami.com/multimedia/miami/news/archive/video/Wyclef2.html
* Video
| Clip from 'Cry Haiti': Jean meets with actor/activists Angelina
Jolie and Brad Pitt
http://www.miami.com/multimedia/miami/news/archive/video/Wyclef3.html
***********************
The
Third Annual Jacmel Film Festival: Discovering the World to Haiti
Kim Yves, December 2, 2006
Audio Image
Already, the southeastern sea-side
city of Jacmel is considered the art capital of Haiti. Small shops
selling giant paper-mache Carnival masks, traditional and avant-garde
paintings, furniture, iron sculpture and wood carvings are sprinkled
along the city's narrow streets. On porches and down alleys, one
spies young men and women, painting, sanding, threading and gluing
all manner of handicrafts, from kites and placemats to baskets
and mobiles.
Nineteenth century stone and brick buildings predominate, with
a few gingerbread mansions, their pastel colors gently scrubbed
and faded by decades of Caribbean wind and sun. Ferns sprout from
the walls and gutters of the elegant old coffee warehouses, whose
tenants now include a bustling art school, a quaint hotel, and
a small film production studio.
Enter the Jacmel Film Festival. Patrick Boucard, a scion of a
prominent local bourgeois family, and David Belle; a North American
expatriate filmmaker who moved to Jacmel a decade ago, conceived
and launched the festival in 2004 as a one time event to celebrate
Haiti's bicentennial. "It was never our intention to have
an annual film festival," explained Belle, who is again acting
as the Festival's executive director in this its third year. "We
wanted to illustrate the history of cinema in Haiti: films made
by Haitians or foreigners set in Haiti, and we programmed 85 films
spanning 70 years."
During that bleak year when Haiti was gripped by another bloody
coup d'état, the festival was a blast of oxygen and hope
to Haiti's long suffering masses. Thousands turned out to watch
films projected on a giant screen under the stars on the town
wharf. Its spectacular success sealed the fate of its initiators.
The population of Jacmel wanted the festival back, literally "by
popular demand." And, in Haiti, some popular demands cannot
be ignored.
The festival's third incarnation is more ambitious than ever.
The line-up includes 92 films from 29 countries from Nov. 24 to
Dec. 2, culminating in a Dec. 1 concert by hip-hop musician Wyclef
Jean. (YeleHaiti, an NGO linked to Jean, is one of the principal
sponsors of this year's festival.)
The festival's formula for success is simple: 1) put Haiti's emerging
cinema on display; 2) introduce cinema from around the world to
Haitians, long confined to a diet of Hollywood and Kung Fu movies;
and 3) make it completely free to the public.
Simple does not mean easy. Haiti's dilapidated infrastructure
and dusty, humid climate are challenges to any equipment-intensive
undertaking: DVDs freeze and skip, electricity is intermittent
and surge-ridden, technicians are few and hard to come by. Finances
are always a problem.
Furthermore, there are no movie theaters, strictly speaking, in
Jacmel. "We actually create screening rooms by taking over
buildings, bringing in our own equipment, and renting chairs,"
Belle explained. "We use a nightclub, a conference room,
and a warehouse. This year we've added a fourth venue which is
a private screening room at a fancy hotel that has been built
outside of town."
The principle venue, however, is breezy Congo Plage (Congo Beach),
where every night thousands gather to watch films projected on
a 20 by 30 foot screen framed by swaying palm trees and a cloud-crowned
moon.
Haitian feature films are, of course, the big favorite and the
centerpiece of the beach showings. Richard Arens' "Chomeco,"
a buddy comedy about the misadventures of two unemployed men married
to and living in the same house with two sisters, produced howls
of laughter from a huge crowd on Saturday. Although hammy, the
innate comic talent of its two protagonists, Nono and Cassagnol,
played by Simon Innocent and Roberto Colas, make this film very
promising.
The next night, some 15,000 people, nearly half of the town's
40,000 population, jammed onto the beach for Sacha Parisot's lushly
produced "La Rebelle," a drama about a rich Haitian
businessman trying to reconcile his unruly teenage daughter with
his fiancée. Although the film and its bourgeois characters
never stray from the landscaped confines of Haiti's super-rich,
it boasts professional camera work, editing and a sophisticated
plot twist or two which make it a new high-water mark for Haitian
cinema.
Georges David Jiha's light-hearted comedy "Café au
Lait" is of a similar vein, but set exclusively in Miami.
Using the romance of a light-skinned lawyer and a dark-skinned
medical intern, the film spoofs Haiti's racial myths with some
serious jabs at tensions and prejudices in Haitian society.
Arnold Antonin's "Le President a-t-il le SIDA" (Does
the President have AIDS?) features an emerging Hollywood actor
Jimmy Jean-Louis as Dao, a brash charming lead singer –
the president of compas – and his romance with the proud
but penniless Nina, played by the talented actress Jessica Généus,
who uses her rare beauty to raise support for herself and her
mother. Paid for in large measure by the United Nations to educate
Haitians about the danger of AIDS, the film also plums religious
misconceptions and class dynamics.
"The Haitian section," which numbered 10 films this
year, "is really exciting because, with digital technology,
more and more films are being produced in Haiti," said Belle.
"Production gets more and more each year, and better and
better. There's really a new wave of Haitian cinema, a lot of
it in Creole."
Belle has also set up a studio and sound room in Jacmel where
foreign films are dubbed in Creole (subtitling was rejected given
Haiti's high illiteracy rate). Now 35 people are engaged in dubbing
films almost year round. "We look to dub films which are
set in similar circumstances in similar countries, similar cultural
and economic settings, that are sharing positive messages of people
addressing their difficulties, " Belle said. For example,
the Festival's team dubbed Zack Niles and Banker White's "Sierra
Leone's Refugee All Stars," a moving documentary about six
men from a refugee camp in Guinée who start a singing group
to entertain and bring hope to fellow refugees hurt in and hiding
from Sierra Leone's civil war.
Other documentaries dubbed include Florence Ayisi and Kim Longinotto's
"Sisters In Law," about women fighting violent marital
abuse in Cameroon, Ward Serrill's "Heart of the Game,"
about a women's basketball team in the U.S., Annette Olesen's
"One to One," about the mysteries and interpersonal
dramas surrounding the near-fatal beating of a youth in Copenhagen,
and Thomas Allen Harris' "12 Disciples of Nelson Mandela,"
the portrait by a son of his father, who was a militant in the
African National Congress.
The festival is now attracting the participation of internationally
prominent cultural figures. A delegation from Cuba included Harold
Gramatges, 88, Cuba's foremost composer and musical figure; renowned
author and Cuba's former UNESCO ambassador Dr. Miguel Barnet Lanza;
prominent filmmaker Lizette Vila Espina; painter, veteran journalist
and former diplomat Victor Mirabal, 96, and his son Richard Mirabal,
head of the Martha Jean-Claude Foundation; and Gema Suarez of
the Association of Cuban Musicians, which is part of the National
Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC).
Legendary documentary filmmaker Al Maysles also attended, holding
a press conference and a filmmaking workshop.
Haitian luminaries included novelist Edwidge Danticat, photographer
Marc Baptiste, and Wyclef Jean.
"The festival is beginning to share a more positive image
of Haiti with people around the world, beginning with the diaspora,"
Belle said. "It's had a tremendous impact on Jacmel. There's
a sense of pride – Jacmel has always considered itself as
Haiti's cultural capital – and this has reinforced that.
"
Belle also points out that the Festival dramatically contributes
to the city's tourism and employment. "All of the hotels
are sold out, all of the restaurants are packed, and there are
the jobs that are created throughout the year by the creole dubbing,"
Belle said. "Jacmelians have been taught audio mixing and
recording and that's something that they'll be able to go on and
use. We've also done intensive workshops with all of our projectionists.
It's really paying off. All the screenings are running for the
most part without problems, and they are running them completely
independently. That's a huge, huge accomplishment. ... It's inevitable
and essential that there is collaboration from people around the
world, otherwise it wouldn't be international. But as much as
possible, the local team is becoming autonomous in terms of skills."
Belle wants to keep moving in this direction. Now that the festival
has become an annual event – scheduled for the end of November,
just before the Havana Festival, instead of in July as it was
the first two years – Belle hopes to hand it off to others
soon.
"It's my personal goal to be able to turn this over as soon
as possible to local Jacmelians, so that they are running their
own film festival," Belle said, which might be a challenge
since "each year it seems to grow in popularity by at least
30% in terms of audience size."
Also the Festival is spreading to other parts of Haiti. "We
spend so much time and energy on putting this thing together,
it is a shame to only present it for one week in Jacmel,"
Belle said. "Why can't it be replicated and moved around
to other parts of the country?"
"That is why we've started a partnership with the Alliance
Française to use their network of centers around Haiti
to get a traveling festival to other parts of the country. We're
going in January to Port-au-Prince, and then in February to Les
Cayes and Cap Ha tien. Simultaneously, we're creating study guides
for the films which have been dubbed in Creole. The study guides
will be distributed to schools in those towns through the Alliance
Française system. While it's impact will not be tremendous
– maybe a few hundred or a thousand people in each city
– it's the beginning of us establishing the festival in
other places, and I think it is inevitable that this aspect will
start to grow."
In politically charged Haiti, Belle says that organizers have
tried to make the Festival a "neutral space." Several
pro-democracy documentaries sympathetic to former President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide were screened in past years, but also films supporting
the coup d'état against Aristide's elected government in
2004. Last year as the coup dragged on, one particularly vitriolic
anti-Aristide film – "GNB Kont Atila" –
by Arnold Antonin, who is also a winless right-wing politician,
received a typically Haitian reception during its evening big-screen
debut on Haiti's wharf. The crowd erupted in loud, boisterous
applause and cheering every time Aristide appeared on the screen,
even though he was being demonized.
There is also something inherently subversive in many of the social
issues being aired on the screens of Jacmel, a point which Belle
recognizes. "In many of the films that we are showing, while
they are not overtly political stories and portraits, there is
a strong, but subtle, political message, which doesn't need any
explanation," Belle said. "People are very very in tune
with what truth and reality are. Sometimes that's all that needs
to be presented."
For more information about the Festival, go to: www.festivalfilmjak
mel.com
Kim Ives, until recently a writer and editor at Haiti-Progres,
is now an independent investigative reporter and documentary filmmaker
with a focus on Haiti
**********************************************
- Audio
| Hip-hop star Wyclef Jean talks about the festival
http://www.miami.com/multimedia/miami/news/archive/audio/1125wyclef.html
- The
Jacmel Film Festival
http://www.festivalfilmjakmel.com/2006-festival/the-festival.php
-Jacmel
Film Festival Trailer
http://www.festivalfilmjakmel.com/2006-festival/trailer.php
- Wyclef's 'Cry Haiti' Video Links:
* Video
| Clip from 'Cry Haiti': Wyclef Jean visits the slums of
Port-au-Prince
http://www.miami.com/multimedia/miami/news/archive/video/Wyclef1.html
* Video
| Clip from 'Cry Haiti': Jean meets with international power
brokers
http://www.miami.com/multimedia/miami/news/archive/video/Wyclef2.html
* Video
| Clip from 'Cry Haiti': Jean meets with actor/activists Angelina
Jolie and Brad Pitt
http://www.miami.com/multimedia/miami/news/archive/video/Wyclef3.html
**********************************************
- (Mp3)
If You Want to know what it means to struggle for democracy, look
at Ayiti , excerpt of song by Franscisco Hererra, June
2006
- An
Unsavory Effort to discredit Haiti Report
_ Q
and A with Haitian President Rene Preval by Jacqueline Charles,
Miami Herald |Oct. 26, 2006
http://www.margueritelaurent.com/pressclips/latortuelegacy.html
**********************************************
Ezili
Danto Witness Project covers Wyclef in Site Soley
Site
Soley united, wants peace. Why is UN attacking Site Soley, and
not equally applying DDR. Meanwhile, UN allows gross human rights
violators, such as, Guy Phillipe, a DEA suspected and accused
drug-traffiker and a known coup d'etat assassin of countless Constitutional
government sympathizers, officials, police officers and civilians
along with Jean Tatoute, a convicted gang leader, and Louis Jodel
Chamblain, formerly second-in-command of the bloody FRAPH paramilitary
organization condemned for its role in the murders of thousands
of people during the 1991 military coup d'etat against President
Aristide, to all roam free and heavily armed in Haiti with no
UN sanctions nor are they condemned by any international outcry.
Update
on detente and police presence in Site Soley, 10/06
Ezili
Danto Witness Project
Top
Haitian Police Chief, Michael Lucius, indicted for corruption,
kidnappings and other crimes, resigns
***********************
- A
Former Finance Minister has been kidnapped in Port-au-Prince,
AHP, Nov. 30, 2006
-
MINUSTHA bring more turmoil to the People of Site Soley
Interview
of Site Soley Youth Activist in Haiti: "We did not kidnap
the UN soldier as reported. The Un wants war in order to stay
in Haiti, May
22, 2006, Ezili Danto Witness Project (English
translation & Kreyol
Audio)
-
Both Lame Timanchèt and UN say their job in Haiti is to
kill "bandits": The failures of the UN and Haitian Police
Chief, Mario Andresol
- UN
troops accuse of Child Sexual Abuse in Haiti
- The
UN Fails Haiti, Again
_Rape
as weapon of war: World cried out for Bosnia, why not Haiti? by
Wilma Eugene as told to Lyn Duff
http://www.margueritelaurent.com/pressclips/kokot.html#rapeweapon
**********************************************
********************
Sexual
Tourism in Haiti on Film:
- Ezili
Danto's Comment on Ghost of Site Soley: In the Wyclef-produced
film, Ghost of Site Soley, Site Soley's well-endowed young, Black
"mandingo bandits," are used and exploited by a white
woman, there in Haiti to, as usual, "do good," but is
merely, in sum effect, exercising the white cultural heritage
from slavery, spreading death in Haiti and possibly more HIV
-
Site Soley featured in controversial docudrama, Dominican Today,
Oct 9, 2006
- Laurent
Cantet's 'Heading South' Shows the Ache of blinding Lust in a
Sexual Paradise Lost,
By STEPHEN HOLDEN | July 7, 2006, New York Times MOVIE REVIEW
- Heading
South, a film depicting White Women predators in Haiti: imperialist
sex tourism/exploitation of young, black and poor Haitian men
- (See also, Sex Tourism in Kenya,
Gambia| |
