Overview:
The Haiti Worldwide Movie Pageant marks its tenth anniversary this month with a weekend of movie screenings and an artwork exhibition, celebrating Haitian id, resilience and storytelling towards a backdrop of ongoing turmoil in Haiti.
Editor’s Word: The Haitian Instances is a media sponsor of the 2025 Haiti Worldwide Movie Pageant.
As Haiti confronts deepening gang violence, political instability and worldwide neglect, the tenth Haiti International Film Festival (HIFF) opens this month with a give attention to resistance by storytelling.
Based in 2015 by Jacquil Fixed, a documentary filmmaker and cinema professor, the pageant will mark its milestone 12 months on August 16 on the Barnsdall Gallery Theatre in Los Angeles. The theme, Liberty: The Artwork of Liberation in Haitian Cinema, frames the weekend of movie screenings and cultural programming as a counterpoint to the crises plaguing the nation.
Internet hosting the occasion is Béchir Sylvain, a Haitian American actor, director and producer who seems within the 2025 blockbuster Jurassic World Rebirth as Leclerc. The opening ceremony begins at 11 a.m.
“The facility of Haitian storytelling can’t be overstated,” mentioned Fixed. “With Haiti underneath siege from gang violence, political collapse and worldwide neglect, the act of storytelling is greater than cultural—it’s important. HIFF stays dedicated to platforming voices that counter stereotypes and restore nuance to Haitian id.”
This 12 months’s movie picks spotlight a variety of voices from Haiti and the diaspora. Notable screenings embody Mountains, Monica Sorelle’s story of a demolition employee compelled to dismantle his quickly gentrifying Miami neighborhood; and Kidnapping Inc. by Bruno Mourral, a political satire wrapped in an action-comedy.
The lineup additionally options Damaged Hope by Hess Wesley, Evil, I by Vanessa Beletic, Keur Simbara by Sea Mahsati, and SIMONE by Philippe Roc. Further works from filmmakers Gabriyèl Barlatier, Al’Ikens Plancher, Robenson Lauvince, and Fernandel Almonor provide nuanced explorations of migration, reminiscence, and survival.
Together with the pageant, Pasadena Metropolis Faculty’s Boone Household Gallery is internet hosting Haitian Revolution: Artwork of the Haitian World South, an artwork exhibition operating by August 14. Curated by Fixed, the exhibit consists of portraits of Haiti’s revolutionary leaders—Toussaint Louverture, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Henri Christophe and Alexandre Pétion—alongside modern items by artists similar to Saurel Louis and Ayanna Legros.
Legros’s work repurposes discarded supplies into installations that replicate rural Haitian life, whereas Louis’s brightly coloured work draw from magical realism to depict home areas and avenue scenes. Collectively, the exhibit and movie pageant create a cultural bridge connecting previous struggles for independence with present-day expressions of resilience.
The milestone 12 months, organizers say, just isn’t solely a celebration of Haitian cinema but additionally a rallying level for reclaiming Haiti’s international picture.
“Now greater than ever, the Haiti Worldwide Movie Pageant is important,” mentioned Cliff Decatrel, an Oscar- and Emmy-winning growth govt and producer, and board member of the pageant.
“In a time when Haiti is just too usually decreased to disaster headlines, this pageant amplifies the tales, artistry and humanity that the world must see. It’s an area the place Haitian voices take the lead, reclaiming narrative energy and reminding us that tradition is not only a mirrored image of wrestle, it’s a declaration of power.”