ABOUT THE PROJECT

LOGLINE
While documenting the explosion of art happening in a Haitian slum, the filmmaker takes viewers into the post-earthquake art scene, an exploration of Haiti’s love affair with Vodou, its revolutionary history, local music, and lots of art.

SYNOPSIS
Pascal Giacomini, a French-American sculptor and photographer based in Los Angeles, is invited to participate in the 2nd Ghetto Biennale of Port-au-Prince, an international art festival founded by Atis Rezistans, a group of Vodou artists who have exhibited at the Venice Biennale; the Grand Palais in Paris; at museums in New York, Los Angeles, Montreal, Geneva, England, Belgium, Japan and more. However, they still live in a slum in the Grand Rue neighborhood of Port-au-Prince.

Giacomini spends a month in this poorest of slums, where he creates three large-scale sculptures with whatever materials he can find on the ground, like the local artists do. His pieces are part of a group show at the end of his stay.

As he prepares his sculptures for the opening of the 2nd Ghetto Biennale, he documents life in the community and undertakes interviews with multiple Haitian artists—those notable and prosperous, those successful but still poor—in his mission to fathom what sustains them despite the daily hardships of life in Port-au-Prince.

OUT OF CHAOS is a film about art made by an artist. Interwoven with photography, local music, and lots of art, it delves into Haitian history through the paintings of the island’s celebrated artists, uses archival footage, and elicits observations and wisdoms from world expert on Vodou, UCLA Professor Emeritus Donald J. Cosentino, as wells as Haitian author and MacArthur Fellow Edwidge Danticat, who supplies a glimpse into some of the reasons behind the world’s ongoing fascination with Haiti. And since Vodou is revealed to be a major influence in the lives and works of most Haitian artists, the film also gives viewers an intimate look at an annual, historically significant Vodou ceremony, which takes place in dazzling color, pomp and circumstance.

PROJECT TYPE Documentary Feature

DIRECTOR Pascal Giacomini
SCREENWRITER Carine Fabius
PRODUCER Carine Fabius

WEBSITE outofchaosthemovie.com