Remembering Haiti’s Revolution in France and North America

The chapter focuses on documentaries, dramatic shorts, and animated shorts about the Haitian Revolution. Many were made entirely by non-Haitians, but some involved collaborations with Haitian scholars and artists. Because Haiti was once a colony of France, several of these documentaries come from French filmmakers. In analyzing these films, the chapter highlights French difficulties in grappling with their histories of slavery and racism, as well as imbalances that give the French greater power to recount Haiti’s history on screen than Haitians themselves. The chapter also examines public television and crowdfunded documentaries from the U.S., such as Égalité for All (2009) and 1804: The Hidden History of Haiti (2017), from white as well as African American directors. Finally, the chapter looks at lesser-known dramatic shorts on the Revolution, and at animated films, including Robin Lloyd and Doreen Kraft’s pioneering 1978 short Black Dawn.