Meet Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck at International House

Haitian-born filmmaker Raoul Peck will be in Philadelphia next Tuesday to present his most recent films, Fatal Assistance and Moloch Tropical, at International House and to discuss his creative process in a conversation with Scribe Video Center’s director Louis Massiah, at Scribe’s West Philly site.

Peck has received numerous awards for his internationally-released narrative and documentary films, including Sometimes in April, a fictional account of the Rwanda genocide made for HBO.

Fatal Assistance, Peck’s 2013 documentary, is an indictment of the international aid process following Haiti’s 2010 earthquake, which killed more than 200,000 people and devastated the country’s already fragile infrastructure. Today, 150,000 people remain in rudimentary shelters. Through interviews with government officials, aid providers, and the families still suffering from the earthquake, Peck sheds light on the disaster after the disaster. NPR reported this month on the four-year anniversary of the earthquake: The reconstruction agency director says they just need more money to resolve the remaining problems.

Moloch Tropical is a fictional account of a day in the reign of a contemporary Caribbean head of state – a puppet ruler whose foreign allies turn on him when local opposition breaks into revolt. A play-within-a-play structure (a production about Haiti’s revolutionary leader Toussaint L'Ouverture is underway) brings a bevvy of Hollywood types to the leader’s hilltop castle as things turn chaotic.

Before the screenings, the afternoon conversation with Massiah will focus on Peck’s ongoing thematic interest in colonialism and its legacy, and how he shapes those concerns into documentary and fictional stories.

Scribe Video Center at 4212 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia is hosting a discussion with director Louis Massiah on February 4 at 4pm. 2009's Moloch Tropical is screening at the International House, 37th and Chestnut Streets, Philadelphia, at 6pm on Tuesday, February 4, with a screening of 2013's Fatal Assistance following at 8pm. For more information, visit http://www.scribe.org/.

Image: filmmaker Raoul Peck on the set of Moloch Tropical. Photo credit Marie Baronnet/Velvet Film.