INNER CITY BLUES
BY REBECCA LEFFLER
WYCLEF JEAN STARS IN GHOSTS OF CITÉ SOLEIL. PHOTO: HENNY GARFUNKEL/RETNA LTD.
“They’re all dead,” says director Asger Leth and co-director -cinematographer Milos Loncaveric, the filmmakers behind the raw, harrowing and unforgettable documentary Ghosts of Cité Soleil. Leth and Loncaveric are referring not only to the tragic deaths of their two protagonists, 2Pac and Bily, just months after shooting wrapped, but also to the fate of the young chimerès living in the slums who struggled to survive in the aftermath of Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s Haiti.
Leth’s film was shot during the final days of Aristide’s reign of power in early 2004 and highlights the harsh realities of life for these young armed men. Though Leth’s camera offers a panorama of daily life in the dangerous, war-ravaged Haitian ghetto dubbed Cité Soleil, it zooms in on two main characters, Haitian gang leaders 2Pac and Bily, brothers who use hip-hop as a survival tool. 2Pac and Bily get involved in a love triangle with a French relief worker named Lele and also seek out the aid of Wyclef Jean, who makes a brief appearance in the film in addition to acting as a producer and composing the movie’s original score. But while music can offer the inspiration to keep these men momentarily alive, there is ultimately no hope and no way out. Yet for the first time ever onscreen, Leth and Loncaveric give audiences a way in. And while the footage is visually stunning and emotionally compelling, the story of how the film, which features firsthand narration of life in these war-ravaged slums, was made is perhaps even more fascinating.
According to Loncarevic, the film is the product of “the right people meeting at the right time in the right place.” It’s the story of how a Danish director on the verge of a nervous breakdown focused his camera lens on the harsh realities of life in the slums of Haiti during a raging civil war and, through the incredible support of a major international hip-hop artist, Danish film-production funds and experienced American producers, shared his extraordinary experience with a global audience. “We had access to this amazing story of these two brothers in Haiti during a civil war,” said Leth. “And I’d been looking for a documentary film that could be pushed toward the feel of a fiction film, with a dramatic structure and strong, strong characters — a character-driven story. So this was perfect.”
GHOSTS OF CITÉ SOLEIL.
Divorced, borderline suicidal and self-proclaimed “crazy,” Asger Leth, the son of acclaimed Danish director Jorgen Leth, who resides in Haiti, became aware of the terrible conditions on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince. He borrowed cameras, hustled his way through some free film stock, lied to the bank to get money and, with a crew of only three, edited “a really hardcore trailer, the most impressive trailer you ever saw” which he used to seek financing for the film. The trailer caught the attention of not only over 30,000 Internet users in just two days but also Nordisk Film, which, with the support of TV2 Denmark, committed more than $30,000 in two weeks. Meanwhile, Loncarevic and Haitian gang leader and “star” of the film 2Pac were frantically trying to get their music to Wyclef Jean. Leth knew how to contact Wyclef but decided to remain mum. “You can’t go and interfere with the characters,” he argued. “If you’re a filmmaker, you have to understand and make clear to yourself that that’s what you are. That by telling the story you are helping. That’s what you can do. That’s what I can do. I can tell the story, but I can’t interfere.”
Luckily, Loncarevic and 2Pac made their own connection to Wyclef and sent Leth to New York with the trailer, the footage and some of 2Pac’s music. According to Leth, it took Wyclef a “split second” to decide to help out with the production, getting involved with Jerry “Wonder” Duplessis and exec producer Seth Kanegis to finance most of the picture. Just a day after looking at Leth’s footage, he hopped a plane with the director to Haiti. They landed in the airport, jumped into cars and went straight into Cité Soleil without bodyguards or protection. “It was the craziest day in Cité Soleil ever,” pronounced Leth. “It was such amazing luck,” added Loncarevic. “Do you understand? No white person has ever entered Cité Soleil. Asger, Lelei and I are the first ones who came inside.” Despite the dangers of filming in arguably the world’s worst slum, the cameras kept rolling, and the crew finally left Cité Soleil with over 400 hours of material.
ASGER LETH. PHOTO: HENNY GARFUNKEL/RETNA LTD.
Kanegis called his friend Cary Woods, producer of such successful independent films as Kids, for his professional opinion. “This was the most compelling footage I’d seen in a very long time,” said Woods. Woods hopped on as the “American producer” during the film’s postproduction stages and used his industry contacts to market the documentary worldwide and seal a deal with Sony BMG for distribution. Two years later the picture premiered at the Deauville and Toronto Film Festivals, and Sony BMG will release it later this year.
So what next? “The solution is not for Haitians to leave Haiti,” says Leth. “The solution is for Haitians abroad who are making money to help Haiti and to go back and help Haitians understand that they have to treat each other as human beings, that just because you live in the slums, you’re not an animal. If you live in a place where there’s absolutely not a glimmer of hope, you’re going to pick up a gun. That’s just the way it is.”
Despite the film’s tragic story, Leth says he’s “professionally and artistically happy. I think we’ve succeeded in doing the film we wanted. Because it’s artistically complete in my mind, then that makes it effective in drawing attention. We have succeeded with the film, people are going to see it, and they are going to understand.”
“You can’t watch this film and not feel anything,” Leth adds. “If you can, then there’s something wrong with you. I think it’s a very complex film. You have these guys who on the surface are thugs and killers, but you end up feeling for them and feeling desperate for their souls. And that’s a magical trip.”
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