After premiering his joyful Haitian dance film Konpa last year at the Tribeca Film Festival, Haiti-born, Miami-based filmmaker Al'Ikens Plancher returns with Boat People, a new short film on the 1990's Haitian refugees held in Cuba’s Guantanamo Bay.
The new project is a drastically different message from Konpa, the culturally deep but upbeat dance flick about Haitian language and culture. Plancher told WLRN that Boat People forces Haitians to interrogate their own place in the American dream.
Plancher invites younger Haitian-Americans to specifically reflect on their parents’ struggles during a time of tough U.S. immigration policy changes that mark a major rollback of U.S. immigration protections and parole options for South Florida immigrant communities, including for Haitians.
Haitians in the U.S have always faced an undying sense of "uncertainty" surrounding immigration and American acceptance, Plancher said.
Boat People, starring Haitian-American actress Odlenika Joseph, follows a fictional woman held at Guantanamo, incarcerated without clocks or calendars, which captures the disorientation of indefinite captivity.
It reveals the controversial detention of Haitian refugees in the early '90s.
Plancher told WLRN he hopes the film exposes the history of trauma caused by harsh treatment under certain strict immigration policies and bridges cultural gaps between Haitians and Haitian Americans who may be unaware of their family’s heritage or history as they build their lives in the U.S.
“Pause and understand where it's [trauma] coming from. Do not dim your light. Do not dim your thinking,” says Plancher, referring to Haitian-Americans trying to make sense of their parents’ past trauma. “Then make your own decision and your own identity, but do not smear the other side.”
The fear of changes to immigration policies goes back decades. Following the 1991 coup against Haiti’s President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and the ensuing political and economic upheaval, U.S. government authorities used Guantanamo Bay — a controversial U.S. naval base in Cuba — to detain Haitian refugees.
By mid-1994, tens of thousands of Haitians were being held there.
READ MORE: 'A dictatorship of indifference': Haitian priest outraged over treatment of immigrants
The premise of Boat People
The 10-minute black-and-white fiction film, based on true events, follows a silent woman held in quarantine for months at Guantanamo Bay.
It begins with an unknown security guard shouting “Cubans here, Haitians line up,” because Cubans and Haitians refugees were often detained in separate holding camps.
The film portrays Haitian asylum seekers facing harsh conditions and being forced to swallow unidentified pills and receive vaccinations from military guards and medical care without clear communication about the side-effects.
And while the military provided screenings and treatment for contagious diseases like tuberculosis, the lack of trust and unclear medical practices added to the trauma of the experience.
The Haitian refugees' fears were justified. From 1991 to 1993, incarcerated Haitian women at Guantánamo Bay were frequently given Depo-Provera, an injectable contraceptive. Military healthcare workers often administered it without proper consultation or consent. At the time, the drug was controversial in the U.S. due to serious side effects and lack of FDA approval for contraceptive use.
Boat People captured a day in the life of a Haitian woman navigating those uncertainties. The film won Best Short Narrative at the Oscar-qualifying BlackStar Film Festival, nominated for Best SAGIndie at HollyShorts, and was an official selection at Essence Film Festival and Third Horizon Film Festivals.
Boat People is one of five award-winning short films by Plancher that will be publicly screened at Florida International University.
FIU's Haitian language professor Nicolas André, who teaches Haitian Creole for the university's Haitian Summer Institute, said Plancher's films, which include Tifi, La Vie, and Prestige, teach the ever-evolving Haitian culture and help bridge the broader divide among people in the diaspora.
“Culture is everything. From cuisine, music and films — all of them are culture,” André said. “It's important to have Haitian films.”
Boat People is Oscar-qualified, meaning it won at a qualifying festival and is eligible for Academy Award consideration.
IF YOU GO
What: Film Screening and Discussion with film director Al'Ikens Plancher
When: July 11 10 a.m. to 12 Noon.
Where: Florida International University, 11200 SW 8th St, Miami, FL 33174; Steven J. Green School of International & Public Affairs, SIPA II, 260.
More details here
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