#2934: OLD HOME MOVIES : Pina comments

[Robert Corbett <bcorbett@netcom.com>]

From: kevin pina <cariborganics@hotmail.com>

>From Kevin Pina

keywords: historical footage, TNH, coup

It is facinating to see how much footage is out there in the world, private 
collections or otherwise, concerning Haitian history. I would love to see a 
lot of what has been recounted on this list.

I had the wonderful opportunity to copy a good deal of Haitian National 
Television archives just prior to the coup which included footage of Baby 
Doc's rule, Namphy's rule, Manigat's faux presidency, the 1987 elections, 
news reports from the 1990 election campaign, the Lafontant attempted coup 
and a great deal more. After the coup, the staff of TNH used a lot of the 
tape stock to rerecord over and I understand it was subsequently lost. It is 
my hope to someday return it to their archives intact when the climate 
permits.

I also had the rare opportunity to view and make copies of a lot of what the 
US marines shot during the occupation including a two minute segment on the 
arrest of Charlemagne Peralte.  It was housed in a airforce base in 
California and much of it was filmed on the old silver nitrate stock making 
it very chemically unstable.  Before the captain in charge realized its 
importance (they had just been contacted by the US National Archives) I 
managed to get them to allow me to pay for the video transfer fees and 
received master copies.

Combined with my original footage of the Aristide campaign, his presidency 
and the 1991 coup, I now have more than 180 hours of Haitian history in my 
archives in SF. It is my sincere desire that I will have the opportunity to 
return this material to Haiti for future generations of filmmakers to take 
advantage of in telling and re-telling this facinating history.




Kevin Pina
Producer/Director  "Haiti:Harvest of Hope"
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