Maman, terre d'Haïti Série-Collection : Journal de voyage

Jean-Marie Drot
1996 - 58 min - Betacam SP - Couleur - France

"Haiti, the only nation of painters. (André Malraux). In this film, Jean-Marie Drot sets out to relate 500 years in the history of this Caribbean island, from Christopher Columbus's arrival at Mole Saint-Nicolas in 1492, to Jean-Bertrand Aristide's democratic election to the presidency in December 1990 with 67 % of the votes.
To celebrate the 500th anniversary of this "Meeting of two worlds", Jean-Marie Drot and his friends in Port-au-Prince organized a touring art show of some 100 canvases, which was seen in Seville, Genoa, Paris, Montreal, Chicago, Detroit and finally Haiti. These colourful examples of vitalist art evoke the most dramatic moments of this great saga.
Taking in images, paintings, landscapes, street scenes, interweaving interviews with painters and texts spoken by two actors, Magali Comeau-Denis and Hervé Denis, this film is a kind of "Baroque suite", a cross between documentary and fiction which nonetheless respects the spirit of the "Travelog" series.