Assistance mortelle

“A catastrophe is not necessarily the event itself, but rather the ability to respond to it.” On January 12, 2010, Haiti was struck by an earthquake. The material and human toll was devastating: 230,000 dead, 1.5 million homeless. The international community mobilised, with promises of financial aid amounting to billions. To manage and coordinate the reconstruction, a special commission was established, co-chaired by Bill Clinton and Jean-Max Bellerive, the Haitian Prime Minister at the time. Over the course of 24 months, Raoul Peck observed this monumental effort from behind the scenes. Using an epistolary exchange between himself and a friend who was an active member of the commission, along with testimonies and archival materials, Fatal Assistance chronicles the hubris of the international humanitarian machine, which sought to use the reconstruction as a foundation for a new model of development. Yet, the post-crisis response turned out to be little more than a spectacle of NGOs leading questionable political strategies, and, worse still, these actions were carried out with complete disregard for the needs of the Haitian people, who were once again stripped of control over their own future.
Emmanuel Chicon

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Silver Dollar Road, 2023
Exterminate All the Brutes, 2021
Young Karl Marx, 2017
I Am Not Your Negro, 2016
Murder in Pacot, 2014
Assistance mortelle, 2013
Moloch Tropical, 2009
L’École du pouvoir, 2008
L’Affaire Villemin, 2006
Sometimes in April, 2005
Le Profit et rien d'autre !, 2001
Lumumba, 2000
Chère Catherine, 1997
It’s Not About Love, 1997
Haïti, le silence des chiens, 1994
Desounen: Dialogue with Death, 1994
The Man by the Shore, 1993
Lumumba: La Mort du prophète, 1991
Haitian Corner, 1988
Merry Christmas Deutschland, 1985
Leugt, 1982