Screening of the Documentary « Fatal Assistance » by Raoul Peck, Friday, 23 May 2014, 20h00, Hackesche Höfe Kino

On Friday, 23 May 2014 at 8 pm, AfricAvenir in cooperation with Rosa-Luxemburg-Foundation, Dafrid, SODI and the Center for Research and Documentation Chile-Latin America (FDCL) invites you to the screening of the award-winning documentary „Fatal Assistance“ (Assistance Mortelle, German version) by Raoul Peck. 12 January, 2010. A devastating earthquake shakes Haiti’s capital. In an instant 250,000 people are killed and 1.2 million left homeless. NGOs from all over the world send experts for critical relief efforts. At first, everyone has high hopes: at an international donors’ conference billions of dollars are pledged and the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC), co-chaired by Bill Clinton, is created to oversee worldwide solidarity efforts. But, two-and-a-half years later, you only have to set foot in Port-au-Prince to see the international community has failed. Hundreds of thousands are still living in tents; the IHRC is as good as dead and only a fraction of the funds pledged have arrived in Haiti. Filmed over two years, Haitian born filmmaker Raoul Peck’s documentary tries to find out how, in spite the international community’s promises, the needs of ten million people in the Caribbean came to be met in such a paltry fashion. He questions political decision-makers, private contractors and engineers – and of course ordinary Haitian people, who have begun a painstaking reconstruction of their own.n“Peck does not criticise the helpers, mostly motivated and intelligent experts. It is the absurd structures in which they are captured. Peck has added radical poetic lyrics to his images (…)“ Der Tagesspiegel

“Direct and indirect power relations between North and South are the core topics of most of Raoul Peck’s movies. (…) And it is always about dignity. Fatal Assistance, too, is the appeal to meet Haitians, and not only them, with solidarity instead of paternalism.“ DIE ZEIT

Following the screening there will be an open discussion with Demba Moussa Dembele (Forum Africain des Alternatives) as well as a small reception in the foyer.

This screening is jointly organised by AfricAvenir and Rosa-Luxemburg-Foundation, Dafrid and SODI and in cooperation with Center for Research and Documentation Chile-Latin America, Africiné, SEV-Magazin, Zentrum Moderner Orient, Club der Freunde von RFI, Berlin Poche, rendez-vous-cine.de, Exberliner, radio multicult.fm, Art Labour Archives, Planète Métis, ISD, Berlinda, AfroHeat, Contemporary& and Latein Amerika Forum (LAF).

Director
Born 153 in Haiti, grown up in Zaire, vocational training in France, USA and studies at the TU Berlin (1974 – 1982), then at the DFFB where he graduated in 1988. The best-known of his movies are “L’homme sur les Quais”, “Lumumba”, “Sometimes in April” on the genocide in Rwanda. His most recent movie “Moloch Tropical” was shown 2009 in Berlin and Toronto. From 1996 – 1997 Raoul Peck was minister for culture in Haiti. 2002, he was member of the International Berlinale-Jury, 2012 of the competition jury of Cannes. For his complete works he received the Irene Diamond Award, presented by Human Rights Watch. Since 2010 he is the head of the board of the film school La Fémis in Paris.

Fatal Assistance (Assistance Mortelle)
Haiti, France, USA, Belgium 2013, 99 min.
D. Raoul Peck
DCP, original with German commentary, partly subtitled

Friday, 23 May 2014
8 pm
Admission: 7,50€
Reduced: Berlinpass, collective tickets for 5 or 10 visits can be used by two,
Gildepass, Heavy User Card

Hackesche Höfe Kino
Rosenthaler Str. 40/41
10178 Berlin
S Hackescher Markt
U Weinmeisterstraße
 
Tickets & Information
030 283 46 03www.hackesche-hoefe.org 
For further informationwww.africavenir.org

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