Murder in Pacot (2014)

Original title

Meurtre à Pacot

Directed by

Raoul Peck

Genre

drama film

Country

Haiti, France, Norway

Runtime

2h 15m

Rated

12

Rating

3.9 of 10 from 9 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A mysterious stranger arrives at a wealthy Haitian couple's damaged villa after the 2010 earthquake. His presence disrupts the household and exposes the class divisions shaken by the disaster.

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What happens

Murder in Pacot (French: Meurtre à Pacot, German: Mord in Haiti) is a feature film by Haitian film director Raoul Peck. The film stars Joy Olasunmibo Ogunmakin, Alex Descas, Thibault Vinçon, and Lovely Kermonde Fifi and is a continuation of the theme Peck featured in his last documentary, Assistance Mortelle (Fatal Assistance), on international aid to Haiti following the earthquake of 12 January 2010 which opened at New York's Film Society of Lincoln Center in February 2014. The lead producers of the joint Haitian, French and Norwegian production were Peck and Remi Grellety. The story, a traditional stranger-comes-to-town plot line examining how the earthquake upended Haiti's strongly divided class system, is loosely inspired by the 1968 mystery Teorema by Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini. In that screenplay, which Pasolini adapted from his own novel, a mysterious stranger, played by Terence Stamp, intrudes an Italian family and seduces every member of the household before leaving as suddenly and mysterious as he came. The shooting location of Peck's film, a three level villa, lies in the already completely rebuild neighbourhood Pacot in Port-au-Prince. The first ideas for the film came when Peck drove daily through that wealthy area while shooting the documentary Assistance Mortelle seeing that the rich were equally affected by the earthquake. By mid-May 2014 the film was ready for editing and according to director Peck is expected to finish by September to be announced at the Toronto International Film Festival or the Venice Film Festival and released end of 2014. The film made its world premier at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival where it is a Masters selection and was shown on 5 September 2014 at the Isabel Bader Theatre. The film was shown in the Panorama category of the 65th Berlin International Film Festival and its European premiere was on 7 February 2015 at the CUBIX cinema at Alexanderplatz. Director Raoul Peck, producer Remi Grellety and the leading actors attended the second screening at the Zoo Palast on 10 February after a photocall and press conference at the Grand Hyatt hotel. The international sales of the film are handled by Doc&Film. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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