Born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Joseph Hillel writes, directs, and produces films about art. His first film, Regular or Super (2004), presents the work of the great architect Mies van der Rohe. Karsh Is History (2009) is a portrait of the famous photographer. Ayiti Toma (2013) is a reflection on the rich Haitian culture. His second feature, City Dreamers (2018), is a documentary about our changing urban environment and four women architects, inspiring trailblazers. Sur les pas de Rhodnie (2021), inspired by the initiatory journey of the choreographer Rhodnie Désir, takes us in the footsteps of African peoples deported to America. In 2022 he wrote and directed MTL_Vues du coeur, a film on the history of downtown Montreal. Koutkekout is his third feature, his second in Haiti.
In Haiti, at a time of cholera and gangs, young artists chose dance, music, and theater to resist. Born after the Duvaliers’ dictatorship, they have lived through 19 presidents, 36 prime ministers, eight coups d’état, three foreign military interventions, and two major earthquakes. Since the assassination of the president in 2021, the country has been abandoned to the criminal gangs that terrorize the population. Nevertheless, the artists are ready to brave any danger to get on stage. They all gravitate around a unique space in Haiti and the Caribbean: the Festival Quatre Chemins held in Port-au-Prince every year, whatever the cost. In a verdant urban lakou with a flowing river, theater comes to life for ten days.
Koutkekout (in English, At All Kosts) is a documentary about the resistance and courage of a people. History, stories, poems, and performances are interwoven between fiction and reality. In Haiti, theater is everywhere: in the street, in Vodou, in politics. Here, reality and fiction rub shoulders and merge. In this space of freedom, another face of Haiti emerges, not just that of a country tormented by a cruel history, but the one dreamt by artists who rely on their talent to survive and (re)build their future and that of the country.
A Q+A with Joseph Hillel will follow the screening.
