Raoul Peck: Haitian Corner

Haitian Corner, Raoul Peck, 98’, USA / BRD,  ZDF 11.10.1988, OV with English subtitles

The poet Joseph has been living in exile in New York for seven years since fleeing Haiti. He has work, his family, a Haitian community radio station publishes his poems. One day, Joseph thinks he recognises one of his torturers from prison. The desire for revenge gradually dominates his entire life. Trauma, witness testimony and exile are the major themes of this early work by Raoul Peck from 1988, shot on original locations in Brooklyn where many immigrants from Haiti lived. The director in an interview: “Depicting torture, violence in general, is very difficult because you are used to the images. I wasn’t primarily concerned with physical violence, but with the indignity, with this slow process of being broken.”

Raoul Peck (*1953) is a well-known Haitian director, scriptwriter, producer and former Minister of Culture of Haiti. He studied in Berlin and now lives in France, Haiti and the USA. His documentaries and feature films have been shown in Locarno, Berlin, Cannes and Toronto and have won numerous awards. The documentary I Am Not Your Negro was nominated for an Oscar in 2017. For Das kleine Fernsehspiel, he made the feature film Haitian Corner (1988), which was also featured in the Berlinale Forum.