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Murder in Pacot

F/Haiti/N 2015, 130 min

The exploration of the fundamental questions of citizenship, responsibility, and justice that have challenged Haitian society ever since it emerged from decades of dictatorship.

Synopsis

After the terrible January 2010 earthquake in Port-au-Prince, an intellectual bourgeois couple struggles to reinvent a life amid the rubbles of their luxurious home. Needing money to survive, the couple decides to rent the remaining habitable part of the villa to “Alex”, a high-level foreign relief worker. He brings with him in the house, Andrémise, an ambitious 17 years old Haitian girl of modest background. Now the couple, strained by the loss of their social position, their ideals, their dreams and desires must face this toxic intrusion.

Streaming-Info

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Language: French, Subtitles: German

Press reviews

(Jennifer’s) assertion that “the country belongs to everyone now that it’s ruined” is probably the moment that tips the balance in her favor, especially when Alex, who had seemed nice and harmless up to this point, turns mean, and their melancholy hosts become exploitative – Hollywood Reporter, 02.05.2015

The country’s foremost filmmaker Raoul Peck has delivered his verdict in a searing chamber piece, Murder in Pacot. – Screendaily, 11.02.2015

Peck’s outlook remains angrily pessimistic: Referred to at frequent intervals, the fetid odor emanating from the couple’s basement is yet another broad metaphor for decaying national foundation. – Variety, 04.03.2015

Murder in Pacot takes its time in building a hot, sweltering atmosphere that brims with tension and uncertainty – cinemablographer, 07.03.2015

Awards and Festivals

- Toronto International Film Festival, 2014
- Berlinale, Panorama, 2015
- Sydney Film Festival, 2015

Additional Texts

Raoul Peck about MURDER IN PACOT

After the January 12, 2010 earthquake that rocked Haiti, killing more than 250,000 people and left 1.2 million of Haitians homeless, I had two solutions, either free-fall into a spiral of limitless deception and depression, or make a film.
I chose the latter, by first shooting over a two-year period my documentary Fatal Assistance and in parallel, start working on a narrative to completely overwhelm my conflicting feelings. I asked the great Haitian writer Lyonel Trouillot to work with me on this second story. With his particular style, simultaneously baroque, Brechtian, poetic and incisive, he was the perfect companion to delve into this emotional no man’s land that my country had become. A sort of “Haiti Year Zero”. We were later joined by French writer-director Pascal Bonitzer, my usual partner-in-crime.
Conceived without compromise, both in substance and in form, by writers from totally different artistic worlds, the resulting radical text was what I needed to render the iconoclastic reality of a post-disaster metropolis: a powder keg, intangible, forceful and unsalvageable.

Credits

Director
Raoul Peck
Screenplay
Lyonel Trouillot, Pascal Bonitzer, Raoul Peck
With
Alex Descas, Joy Olasunmibo Ogunmakin / Ayo, Thibault Vinçon, Lovely Kermonde Fifi, Albert Moléon, Zinedine Soualem, Pinas Alcera, Max Kénol
Director of Photography
Eric Guichard
Editor
Alexandra Strauss
Music
Alexei Aigui
Production Design and Buildings
Benoit Barouh, Frédéric Vialle
Producers
Rémi Grellety, Raoul Peck
Produced by
Velvet Film
German theatrical Release
17.09.2015

DVD-Details

Extras
FATAL ASSISTANCE Documentary by Raoul Peck (HAI/F/USA/B 2013, 100 min), Berlinale 2015 – Press conference with Raoul Peck and the actors (42 min), Trailer
Language
French
Subtitles
German, English
Country Code
Code-free
System
NTSC / Color
Laufzeit
130 min + 144 min Extras
Aspect Ratio
16:9
Sound Format
DD 2.0 + 5.1
Content
Softbox (Set Content: 2), Booklet
Release date
03.06.2016
Rating
From 12 Years