Development, history, and colonialism collide when a seemingly simple aid project spirals out of control in Haiti. When | dG1fTEozV2xuTkdwdVU
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Short filmTranscript
00:00 So, this project has been on your back burner for several years.
00:09 What stalled it and what was the impetus that freed the production again and finished it
00:14 off?
00:15 It wasn't necessarily ever stalled.
00:17 I understand where you're coming from.
00:20 But the story of the production was, I found out about it by hearing a story on the radio
00:25 after the earthquake in Port-au-Prince in 2010.
00:28 So, for those who don't know, it's been 10 years in the making.
00:32 And then, it started then.
00:35 I was listening to the radio and hearing NPR plan and money reports on it.
00:39 But it wasn't until April of 2011 when this guy, Tim Myers, who's the subject of the documentary,
00:44 he lived in Colorado at the time, said, "I'm going to build this school."
00:49 June, July of 2011 is when it started.
00:52 And then, they actually built and fundraised at the same time.
00:56 So, for them, it was from 2011, actually until 2016 is when the school opened.
01:01 And the point of this documentary was to explore what would it be if we just followed a project?
01:07 What could we learn about international aid, about all of these issues that we deal with
01:10 in the film, if we followed a single aid project from beginning to end?
01:16 Part of what took so long, if that's the question, basically, what took you so long, is from
01:21 2011 and 2016, we were just filming.
01:23 And partly not knowing exactly how it's going to end.
01:27 And so, sort of going off to the right.
01:28 And then, 2016 to '20 and '21, basically.
01:31 Because also, when you finish editing a film, you usually have four, six, or 12 months more
01:38 post-production, which I'm not sure if a lot of people realize.
01:41 Sound, graphics, mixing, color correction, all this sort of stuff.
01:47 Once you've locked the creative of the edit, there's a whole other layer that adds on top
01:50 of it.
01:51 So, if you break it up like that, six years to film and four years to edit, it's not terrible.
01:57 I guess if I'm being a little more forthcoming with you, Pat, part of it was that the film
02:03 was challenging to make.
02:07 We didn't want to make a straight commercial for aid worker NGOs.
02:13 We also didn't really believe that we think aid is inherently wrong.
02:17 So, it's not an anti one of these movies.
02:22 Like Poverty Incorporated or Big Men, some of these other documentaries that are in the
02:26 space.
02:27 We wanted to try to make a film that was in between.
02:29 And as artists, we didn't feel like it made sense for us to prescribe the answers to these
02:34 things, but just ask these questions.
02:37 But then that opens up a whole other level of nuance.
02:41 Now you're getting into just straight nuance.
02:42 And nuance takes time and it's hard.
02:46 And how we sort of got through that was doing a lot of feedback screenings, sending it out
02:51 to folks, other filmmakers, doing feedback screenings in person when we could still do
02:55 that, sending it to Haitians, Haitian Americans, people who are familiar with this work, and
03:00 incorporating a lot of feedback to try to make sure it was a film that felt honest.
03:07 What human traits or flaws, which you mentioned at times in the documentary, contribute to
03:12 the state of corruption, which seems to define Haiti?
03:16 And why hasn't a reformer like Mandela, Gandhi, or Dr. King emerged among the sufferers in
03:21 your observation?
03:23 I think I'm compelled to push back on the corruption part first.
03:27 I think one of the things that we're trying to do in the documentary is challenge some
03:31 of the narratives that have formed about Haiti.
03:35 And I'll also say, and when we talk about it, I'll say places like Haiti.
03:39 There's a sort of disaster narrative, poverty narrative, third world economy or developing
03:45 economy narrative that emerges about these things.
03:49 So you see it in Haiti a lot, but it is true elsewhere.
03:54 You have a person who's in a position of power in a rural village where there's no, the central
03:58 government, their federal government, although it's not the same system, but essentially
04:02 their US government, their federal government is non-existent.
04:05 The local government is existent, but not very powerful.
04:09 So you have someone who's in a position of power, whether, and most of the time in a
04:13 place like Haiti, where there's up to 10,000 or more than 10,000 NGOs in a nation that
04:18 only has like 11 million people, that's a lot, funneling in a ton of money.
04:24 Now this person is a conduit for money and they are in an unofficial position.
04:32 And yes, they're going to take maybe some money on the side for their troubles.
04:36 In America, we call that taxes, but there's no taxes really there.
04:42 And so it's just complicated.
04:44 And I think part of this whole experience has been rethinking how we as Americans and
04:48 we in the developing economies look at how business is done elsewhere.
04:54 And so sort of, I'm backdooring into answering your question.
04:56 I think that's the flaw or the challenge or the thing that we, and I think Tim would a
05:01 hundred percent agree with this.
05:03 Like Tim came in with a sort of, this is how we do it in America.
05:07 And we're America, we clearly do it the best.
05:10 Right?
05:11 I'm being sarcastic right now, but it's also not totally sarcastic because it's like, we
05:15 don't have earthquakes.
05:16 When earthquakes hit, they don't, the buildings don't crumble.
05:18 So right.
05:19 That's where it gets immediately complicated to answer sort of anything.
05:23 But I think that's the sort of thing, I think it's like coming in sort of headstrong, I
05:29 think coming in with like, we know what the answers are coming in that this is the only
05:33 way to do it.
05:34 And I would say that actually goes on both sides of the equation on this.
05:38 Both the person who's coming in and also the person who's sort of like, well, this is how
05:41 things are done here.
05:42 It's like, well, maybe things could be done better in Haiti.
05:45 Like, yes, this corruption thing, maybe what if we strengthen the government?
05:48 Like what if there were other things that could happen?
05:50 And why hasn't there been a Mandela or a Gandhi or anything like that?
05:55 I mean, earlier this year, after the president Moisey was assassinated, you know, Biden came
06:02 out and said, we're not going to get involved in Haiti.
06:05 We don't want to do that.
06:06 And that was all the hubbub of the time.
06:07 It's like, oh, we don't want to get involved in that.
06:09 And I would push back on that as well, because we are already involved.
06:12 We've been involved in Haiti since before it was even a country.
06:17 And by involved, I mean, we've been messing with it and messing it up because of deeply
06:23 racist policies.
06:24 I mean, we never even said it was a country until 50 years after it was free.
06:30 It was the second country in the world, I think, or at least in the Western Hemisphere,
06:35 to no longer have a colonial master, the first one being America.
06:39 And we never were like, we never, you know, said you guys exist.
06:44 Why?
06:45 Because it was run by black people, people who used to be slaves who overthrew their
06:48 masters.
06:49 Half the country was still slave.
06:50 The president at the time was Thomas Jefferson, known slave owner and lover.
06:55 So it's just like, it's we've always been involved and we're always in there and we're
06:59 always not helping, essentially.
07:02 Interesting.
07:03 This is Patrick McDowell for HollywoodChicago.com.
07:07 Copyright 2022.