Projections #3 + NIRIN: Cinema of Haiti

This screening in our Projections series, on 19 September 2020 at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, features the Australian premiere of Ouvertures (2020) by The Living and the Dead Ensemble, with an introduction by Haitian–Australian performer Nancy Denis.

Moving from the frozen landscapes of the Jura mountains to the urban centres of Port-au-Prince, Ouvertures brings the Haitian revolutionary Toussaint Louverture back to life. In France, a Haitian researcher tries to read the past within the stratigraphic layers of Jurassic limestone, whilst in Haiti a group of young actors translate and rehearse scenes from Monsieur Toussaint, a play written by Édouard Glissant, that recounts the last days in the life of Louverture dying in exile in a prison cell in the Jura, 1803. Ghosts from the pantheon of Haitian history visit Louverture on his deathbed and put him to trial.

Nancy Denis is a Haitian–Australian actor who began dance training at the age of three and has since gone on to secure roles on stage and screen in productions such as The Baulkham Hills African Ladies Troupe and Cleverman.