5504: "Haiti: Harvest of Hope" now available on video! (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Haiti Reborn <haiti@quixote.org>

The film "Haiti: Harvest of Hope" is a powerful testimony to the Haitian
struggle for democracy, and it is particularly timely during this
election year. "Harvest of Hope" looks at the people and events that
have shaped the story, and provides intimate insight into the movement
towards freedom in Haiti.

This film is NOW AVAILABLE ON VIDEO and can be yours for only $25
(including shipping). For more information contact Haiti Reborn at the
Quixote Center, haiti@quixote.org or (301)699-0042. More information and
photos from the film will soon be available on the Haiti Reborn website,
www.quixote.org/haiti.

>From the election campaign of 1990 and Aristide’s first six months in
office, through the coup of September of 1991 and the events that
followed, Harvest of Hope is a tour de force of images and intimate
interviews expressing the desire of Haiti’s poor majority to move from
dictatorship to democracy.  What emerges is a powerful portrait of the
hope and determination of the Haitian people as they struggle to
overturn years of repression and institutionalized corruption and break
from the dark legacy of the past.

Order your copy of this powerful film today! For a mere $25 this piece
of history can be yours. Relive the moments of courageous struggle!

MORE ABOUT THE FILM:
Haiti: Harvest of Hope was originally planned as a documentary about
democracy
coming to Haiti with the election of Jean-Bertrand Aristide in December
1990.
During the final editing of the original, in late September 1991, Haiti
was
struck by yet another military coup. Editing of the first version came
to a
halt as the filmmaker returned to Haiti on October 2 and spent the next
three
weeks chronicling the brutality and machinations of Haiti’s new military

leaders and their supporters.

Editing resumed until the filmmaker received telephone threats from
supporters
of the military regime at his studio in San Francisco, California.
Following
a hiatus, the filmmaker returned to Haiti in late July 1993 just after
conclusion of the negotiation of the Governor’s Island Accord between
the
Haitian government in exile and General Raoul Cedras.  During the course
of an
interview with Senator and coup supporter Thomas Eddy Dupiton,  a
drive-by
shooting occurred.  The filmmaker escaped unharmed but Senator Dupiton
was
shot twice in the forearm and a by stander was hit in the foot and
neck.  The
next day the military and police issued a warrant for his arrest and
accused
the filmmaker of the attempted assassination of Senator Dupiton.
Following
intense interrogation by the police, he was forced to leave the country
but
returned again in 1994 to film Aristide’s return to Haiti.

The world television premiere of Harvest of Hope was in Haiti on
Mother’s Day,
March 28, 1994. The broadcast was dedicated to the mothers of Haiti who
sacrificed so much during the years of the coup to restore democracy to
Haiti.
The Creole version was produced in association with Jean-Claude
Martineau who
also introduced the film on Haitian National Television. The first
English
version of Harvest of Hope was shown to a sold-out house at the Mill
Valley,
California Film Festival in the summer of 1994.

Never having received wide distribution since, Harvest of Hope is a rare
film
that few have had the opportunity to experience.  The final director’s
cut was
completed in 1998 and has only been seen by a select few.  It is offered
to
you exclusively through a special distribution arrangement with the
Quixote
Center/Haiti Reborn Project.

Harvest of Hope is the quintessential primer for understanding the roots
of
the current crisis in Haiti. The film dramatically captures seminal
moments in
the history of Jean-Bertrand Aristide and the Lavalas movement that
swept him
into the presidency in December 1990.

ABOUT THE FILMMAKER:
Kevin Pina is a documentary filmmaker and co-founder of Caribbean
Harvest, a
California based company that sells and markets products from farmer’s
cooperatives in Haiti. His filmography includes El Salvador: In the Name
of
Democracy (1985), Berkeley in the Sixties (1990), and Amazonia: Voices
from
the Rainforest (1991).

_____

Melinda Miles, Coordinator
Haiti Reborn/Quixote Center
P.O. Box 5206, Hyattsville, MD 20782
(301)699-0042, haiti@quixote.org, www.quixote.org/haiti