Cinema
Anita
Rassoul Labuchin · 1980
Synopsis
Anita, a poor young peasant girl, leaves the countryside for Port-au-Prince, where she goes to work as a domestic servant for a well-off family. The film follows her work and her hardships in her employers' house, and through her denounces the exploitation of children placed as domestic servants; according to the New York film archive that screened it, it can also be read as an image of the dependence that American imperialism imposed on the country.
Context
The film came about from a meeting in Belgium with Jules Brunin, author of L'Enfer des gosses, and from the International Year of the Child, declared for 1979; co-produced by Michaëlle Lafontant-Médard and Rolf Orthel, it was shot in Haiti in January 1980 and edited in the Netherlands, with Chantal Guerrier in the title role, then released on 5 October 1980. The Anthology Film Archives reports that it was immediately censored and that it circulated in the provinces through travelling screenings; its success is attributed to the ciné-club Point-de-Vue.
Who it is for
A forty-five-minute medium-length film in Creole, of which a digital copy with English subtitles was shown in New York.
Prizes and reception
The Larousse du cinéma regards it as the first successful Haitian work; it was shown again in Montreal in 2020.
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