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Killer. Robin Hood. Cannibal gang leader. Revolutionary. These are some of the conflicting labels that have been attached to Jimmy “Barbecue” Chérizier, the former police officer-turned-gang chieftain at the center of Haiti’s spiraling violence. Since the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse plunged the country into anarchy, mainstream news outlets and social media have portrayed Chérizier as a kind of arch-villain. He and his supporters counter he’s being targeted for daring to upend an entrenched political order in which armed gangs have done the bidding of moneyed elites.

At a glance, there doesn’t seem to be much to feel optimistic about on the world stage this year. The simmering decades-long Israel-Palestine conflict has exploded into hot war again, with conservatively thousands dead. Afghanistan fell back under control of a repressive theocracy almost immediately after the end of a 20-year occupation ostensibly to prevent such a thing. A devastating civil war has racked Sudan and Haiti, a country that has struggled to catch a break since it gained independence, is in the third year of a crisis that began with the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.

Despite this, pockets of the Internet, particularly the rich intersection of leftists and sci-fi nerds, have found reason for geopolitical hope, however faint, this year, and the source is a 34-year-old episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

US filmmaker Alex Gibney says Musk, his documentary about businessman and investor Elon Musk, is “likely to be seen next year”.

The film is in production through Gibney’s Jigsaw Productions, with Closer Media, AC Independent and Double Agent. Gibney told Screen he “keeps reaching out” to the tech billionaire to be involved in the film, but without success so far.

“It’s likely to be seen next year; I’m working on it now,” said Gibney, speaking to Screen at Cph:dox in Copenhagen where he gave a talk on Tuesday, March 19. “We keep reaching out [to Musk], but I haven’t...

US filmmaker Alex Gibney says Musk, his documentary about businessman and investor Elon Musk, is “likely to be seen next year”.

The film is currently in production through Gibney’s Jigsaw Productions, with Closer Media, AC Independent and Double Agent. Gibney told Screen he “keeps reaching out” to the tech billionaire to be involved in the film, but without success so far.

“It’s likely to be seen next year; I’m working on it now,” said Gibney, speaking to Screen at Cph:dox in Copenhagen where he gave a talk on Tuesday, March 19. “We keep reaching out [to Musk], but I haven...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. To keep up with our latest features, sign up for the Weekly Edit newsletter and follow us @mubinotebook.NEWSNostalgia.Industry experts warn that digital cinema files are not being properly maintained (“You have an entire era of cinema that’s in severe danger of being lost”), emphasizing the importance of amateur preservation efforts like Rarefilmm, recently profiled on Notebook.After a caucus week of intra-union meetings, negotiations between IATSE and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers continued, with their current contract set to expire on July 31. This week’s discussions focused on specific proposals from each of the 13 West Coast locals, starting with the International Cinematographers Guild, Local 600.Vision du Réel has announced the full program for its 55th edition, running April 12 to 21 in Nyon, Switzerland. The competition slate includes mostly first features.In PRODUCTIONLittle Shop of Horrors.

Raoul Peck, the Oscar-nominated filmmaker behind 2016’s I Am Not Your Negro, is in production on his latest documentary, an investigation into the 2021 assassination of Haitian president Jovenel Moise.

Tentatively titled The Hands That Held the Knives, Peck is not only directing but producing the film under his Velvet Films banner alongside Jigsaw Productions, with Imagine Documentaries, Anonymous Content, and Double Agent, who are also financing the project.

Peck’s take is being described as a “documentary thriller, in the tradition of Graham Greene or John Le Carré.” Per Monday’s announcement, Peck is going deep into the politics of Haiti, its relationship with the United States, and the corrupt business empires and criminal organizations that have now rendered the country a hellscape for its citizens.

The film will take audiences right up to the present moment, per the producers, “as ruthless gangs backed by oligarchs with well-paid lobbyists in Washington,...

Filmmaker Raoul Peck’s next documentary will delve into the 2021 assassination of Haitian president Jovenel Moise. The film, tentatively titled “The Hands That Held the Knives,” has been in production for over two years.

The documentary will be a thriller “in the tradition of Graham Greene or John Le Carré,” according to a press release. It will offer access to people involved in the murder of Moise, who was shot inside his home in July 2021. It will also feature secret footage from Haiti’s prisons and an encounter with a fugitive who witnessed the killing.

“The Hands That Held the Knives” will attempt to unpack Haiti’s politics, its relationship with the United States, as well as corrupt business empires and criminal organizations that deal drugs and contraband throughout the Caribbean. Per the official announcement, “the film will take us right up to the present moment, as ruthless gangs backed...

Director Raoul Peck, who helmed the 2016 documentary “I Am Not Your Negro,” has announced his new documentary project. “The Hands That Held the Knives” will detail the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse in 2021.

The documentary, which took over two years to make, is said to be in the same vein as the works of Graham Greene and John Le Carré. Peck was given access to the people involved in Moïse’s killing, and even secretly filmed in Haiti’s prison system. The documentary will lay out Haitian politics, its relationship to the U.S. and the corruption and criminality the country deals with, including drugs and weapons trafficking.

“I am eager to tell my country’s real story beyond the usual exotic clichés and preposterous clickbait,” Peck said in a prepared statement. “I want to reveal for once, without holding back, the core stories and real reasons for Haiti’s tragic situation.

Raoul Peck is in production on his latest documentary The Hands That Held The Knives which explores the 2021 assassination of Haitian president Jovenel Moise.

Haitian-born Peck is producing through his Velvet Films alongside Jigsaw Productions, with Imagine Documentaries, Anonymous Content, and Double Agent, who are also financing the project.

Editing is underway and shooting continues in Haiti, the US, Canada, France, and North Africa.

More than two years in the making, the documentary thriller is described as being in the vein of Graham Greene or John Le Carré and explores the politics of Haiti and its relationship with the United...

Raoul Peck, the filmmaker behind Academy Award-nominated documentary I Am Not Your Negro, is in production on his next feature doc — an investigation into the 2021 assassination of Haitian president Jovenel Moise, tentatively titled, The Hands That Held the Knives.

Over two years in the making, with unprecedented access to many of those involved, and including secret filming in Haiti’s prisons and an unexpected encounter with a fugitive who was an eyewitness to the murder, Peck’s film taking him back to his home country will be a documentary thriller, in the tradition of Graham Greene or John Le Carré.

His investigation takes him deep into the politics of Haiti, its relationship with the United States, and the corrupt business empires and criminal organizations — dealing drugs and contraband throughout the Caribbean, using weapons trafficked from the U.S. — which have now rendered the country a hellscape for its citizens. The...

Art imitates life in the Sundance-bound “Kidnapping Inc.,” a dark comedy about a botched kidnapping plot that became eerily prescient when three crew members were abducted during the production of the film.

Haitian director Bruno Mourral’s feature debut follows a pair of hapless kidnappers tasked with what appears to be a simple abduction for hire, only to find that it’s anything but when they’re suddenly drawn into a vast political conspiracy.

In a harrowing twist, the production team’s convoy was waylaid by gunmen one night as cast and crew were returning from a location shoot. Three crew members were abducted, setting off frantic negotiations with local gangs, who were demanding a ransom of $1 million per hostage.

The incident would soon draw in the president of the neighboring Dominican Republic, where two of the hostages were from. Eventually, the prime minister of Haiti intervened to free the three men.

Just before eight in the morning on May 29, Lourdy Denis answered his phone and a woman informed him that his son had been shot in the head. She’d found Denis’ number scribbled on the back of the child’s notebook, and pleaded with him to come quickly. Denis raced to the Doctors Without Borders hospital in southwest Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital, in a state of panic. How long would the boy hang on? And what happened to his younger brother? Lourdy-son and Paul were inseparable, and had left for school that morning together.

A former Haitian justice official, who has been a key suspect in the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse of Haiti, was arrested Thursday after being on the run for more than two years, the New York times reported.

The suspect, Joseph Félix Badio, 60, was captured outside the capital, in the neighborhood of Petion Vile in Port-au-Prince, while driving an S.U.V.

President Moïse was killed on July 7th, 2021, when gunmen carrying automatic weapons and grenades entered his home in Port Au Prince, Haiti, and shot both the president and first lady.

Debates on national identity and foreign aid are par for the course for car riders – though this documentary is itself tangled up in the country’s complex power structures

‘Zo reken” means “shark bones” in Haitian Creole, and refers to a traditional cane liquor purported to increase virility. It is also a local nickname for the Toyota Land Cruiser, a high-powered car that can breezily weather the tough road conditions in Port-au-Prince. Largely shot in the back of one of these vehicles, Emanuel Licha’s documentary is structured around a steady flow of conversations on national identity, political conflicts and foreign intervention.

Emerging from these discussions is discontent at the government of Jovenel Moïse – the country’s former president who was assassinated in 2021 – as well as a distrust of international humanitarian aid. One passenger, for example, laments on the irony of how support from NGOs has had the negative effect...

Four individuals suspected of having a role in the 2021 assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse were charged in the United States on Thursday. According to the Department of Justice, three of those charged are Haitian-American citizens, the fourth is a Colombian national.

Haitian-American citizens James Solages, Joseph Vincent, and Colombian citizen German Alejandro Rivera Garcia were charged by the department with “conspiring to commit murder or kidnapping outside the United States and providing material support and resources resulting in death.” Christian Sanon, also a Haitian-American citizen, was charged with “conspiring...

On Saturday, a devastating 7.2 magnitude earthquake hit Haiti. More than 1,400 people were killed in the island nation, which was also the site of a massive earthquake in 2010, and at least 6,000 have been injured as of Tuesday, per the Associated Press.

The earthquake hit about 80 miles west of the capital of Port-au-Prince, displacing tens of thousands of people; 7,000 homes have been destroyed per PBS News Hour, who also reports that Covid-19 vaccines had only begun to be distributed less than two weeks prior to the earthquake. An estimated 30,000 families are homeless.

Following the Wednesday assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse, the U.S. is sending senior federal law enforcement officials to the island nation, which has requested American troops to help maintain order. Senior officials from the Department of Homeland Security and FBI will leave for Haiti’s capital city Port Au Prince “as soon as possible,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters at a Friday briefing.

“The United States remains engaged and in close consultation with our Haitian and international partners to support the Haitian people in the...