1st Haiti Film Festival brings awareness

On Jan. 12, 2010, Haiti was affected by a devastating earthquake. On Sunday, more than one year after the disaster, La Casa Cultural Center and Bloomington for Haiti sponsored the first Haiti Film Festival.

The festival showcased films that presented people from Haiti before and after the quake.

“One of the reasons we had this film festival was because a year had passed, and we need people to know that Haiti is still critical,” said Lillian Casillas, director of La Casa.
“There are still a lot of people living in tents and in need of water and food.”

The film festival, which lasted from 1:30 to 7 p.m. at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater, showed documentary films that were all filmed in Haiti. Many were filmed from the perspectives of Haitian people and by native Haitians.

Some of the films’ directors and editors attended the film festival and had question and answer sessions with members of the audience.

However, not all of the films were about the earthquake. The film “Poto Mitan” was filmed before the earthquake and was about the personalized global struggles for fair employment.

“We are in a world economy,” co-director of “Poto Mitan” Renée Bergan said to the audience. “We need to see how our actions can affect people’s lives. We need to encourage people to stay on top of Haiti and let Congress know that we care.”

Bergani said Haiti had many problems with the economy and human rights before the earthquake, and now those problems haven’t gone away.

Bergan encouraged the audience to investigate the non-governmental organizations that are working in Haiti and to see where their money really goes.

“Still one year later 30 percent of camps have no toilet, and one in five have no education or health facility,” Bergan said.

Aside from the films being shown the festival also had information booths of organizations involved in helping Haiti.

“The amount of interest to help is not at the level it was one year ago,” said Michael

VanHook, founder and president of International Sports Alliance.  “When the earthquake first hit there was an overwhelming amount of support. Now there is question of what is going to happen to Haiti.”

Through a recent outbreak of cholera in Haiti and return of the former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier, VanHook said Haiti has had little support from the media.

VanHook said this is why it is important to have events such as the Haiti Film Festival.
They bring to people’s attention that Haiti is still in dire need of help.

The organizations at the film festival were not only educating people on the problems of Haiti but were also sharing information on how to get involved in Haiti.

Organizations promoted causes such as the Imagine Haitian reforestation project, which is a project working on starting a tree nursery in Haiti. The organization provides the tools and education to start a tree nursery, Imagine Haitian member Elizabeth Cooke said.

There were also arts organizations working to bring awareness and education on problems in Haiti, such as Cultural Cannibals, an organization based out of Indianapolis.

DJ and organization member Kyle Long said Cultural Cannibals uses graphic art and music to work with culture in a deeper way.

“The arts can connect with people in a different way,” Long said. “Music, film or art can reach people on a deeper level. It may not fix it, but it helps to get people involved.”

Bloomington for Haiti is presenting a question and answer forum with directors of two of the documentaries at 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. today in the Walnut Room in the Indiana Memorial Union.