Williams College to Present Francophone Caribbean Film Festival

Media contact: Noelle Lemoine, communications assistant; tele: (413) 597-4277; email: [email protected]

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., February 7, 2013—Beginning this month, Williams College will sponsor “Power, Freedom, and Madness: Contemporary Francophone Caribbean Film Festival.”  Organized by Professors Katarzyna Pieprzak and Neil Roberts, the festival will feature three films that examine the ideas of historical and fictitious representations of leadership, power, and freedom in the French-speaking Caribbean and the contemporary significance in the region, France, and global politics. All films will be screened at Images Cinema. The first film, “Toussaint L’Ouverture,” will be shown on Monday, Feb. 18 in two parts, the first starting at 5:30pm and the second at 7:30pm. The second film, “Aliker,” will be screened at 7 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 25, and the third film, “Moloch Tropical,” will be shown at 7 p.m. on Monday, March 4. The events are free and open to the public.

“Toussaint L’Ouverture” (2012) is an action-packed film that chronicles the life of the Haitian leader. L’Ouverture led the world’s first successful slave revolt as he defeated Napoleon Bonaparte and won independence for Haiti from France. L’Ouverture established Haiti as the first black nation in the western hemisphere and the first black free nation. The success of the Haitian Revolution had strong consequences for slavery throughout the Americas.

“Aliker” (2009) narrates the story of André Aliker, the Martinican journalist who was assassinated in 1934. Aliker was a communist militant who was known as a champion of journalism as a form of free expression and as the means for pursuing truth in colonial Martinique in the 1930s. The film is directed by Guy Deslauriers and based on a script by Martinican novelist Patrick Chamoiseau. The film stars the Cape Verde-born hip-hop artist Stomy Bugsy.

“Moloch Tropical” (2010) is a psychological drama about the final moments of a fictional Caribbean president as a violent revolution erupts. On a day he set aside for a national holiday, the democratically elected ruler of a small tropical nation finds that the people have taken to the streets in chaotic protests against him. The ruler tries to hold on to his power during the revolutionary unrest. Haitian-born director Raoul directs the film, which stars Jimmy Jean-Louis.

The event is sponsored by the departments of Romance Languages, Political Science, and the Center for Foreign Languages, Literatures, and Cultures. Generous support came from Leadership Studies, Africana Studies, the Department of History, the Davis Center, and the W. Ford Schumann Fund ’50 Program in Democratic Studies. For more information, cflang.williams.edu or imagescinema.org

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Published February 7, 2013