Ouvertures

The Living and the Dead Ensemble
Part of

Big Screen Summer: NYFF58 Redux

June 11 - August 26, 2021

In this 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—a group of young actors translate, rehearse, and debate their Creole production of Édouard Glissant’s play Monsieur Toussaint, creating a space in which the ghosts of Haiti’s colonial past return to address its present.

DIRECTOR
The Living and the Dead Ensemble
YEAR
2020
COUNTRY
UK / France
RUNTIME
132 minutes
LANGUAGE
Haitian Creole and French with English subtitles

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.

For in-theater screenings, please review the FLC in-theater safety and health policies here.

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