Ouvertures

The first film from The Living and the Dead Ensemble—a collaboration among artists and performers from Haiti, France, and the United Kingdom spearheaded by artist Louis Henderson and curator Olivier Marboeuf—Ouvertures traces a reverse chronology of the life of revolutionary leader Toussaint L’Ouverture from his imprisonment and death in France at the hands of Napoleon’s forces, to Port-au-Prince, where, in the present, a group of young actors translate, rehearse, and debate their Creole production of Édouard Glissant’s play Monsieur Toussaint. The film becomes a meditation on the politics of collective authorship and translation, creating a space in which the ghosts of Haiti’s colonial past return to address its present. An NYFF58 Currents selection.

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Watch our Q&A from the 58th New York Film Festival below.