April In Paris Film Festival – Fatal Assistance

Director: Raoul Peck

2013, Haiti/France, 99

Cast: Narrators: Celine Sallette, Raoul Peck.

Discussion led by Tim Landry, Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Religious Studies at Trinity College.

 

“This film belongs to those who will use it in their work. It belongs to those who embrace it. It will go to those to whom it speaks.” – Raoul Peck. Among the many genres of outstanding French and Francophone movies, documentaries have always stood out as an essential way to understand the world around us. The Sorrow and the Pity, To Be and to Have, and The Gleaners and I have all sidestepped conventional wisdom to find the truth. Haitian filmmaker (and Haiti’s former Minister of Culture) Raoul Peck tours his country for two years after a devastating earthquake, at first simply to document the reconstruction. But as mistakes turned into tragedies, the film began to investigate the help – or lack of help – provided by international aid agencies. Fatal Assistance joins Peck’s films Lumumba: The Last Prophet and I Am Not Your Negro with its insistence on revealing reality in a way that humanizes its subjects, and galvanizes its audience towards change.

“A potent, persuasive and quietly furious documentary. Peck powerfully asserts Haiti’s right to create its own story.” – Manohla Dargis, New York Times.