How (not) to Build a School in Haiti | movie | 2022 | Official Trailer - video Dailymotion

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Development, history, and colonialism collide when a seemingly simple aid project spirals out of control in Haiti. When  | dG1fTEozV2xuTkdwdVU

Transcript

00:00 So, this project has been on your back burner for several years.

00:09 What stalled it and what was the impetus that freed the production again and finished it

00:14 off?

00:15 It wasn't necessarily ever stalled.

00:17 I understand where you're coming from.

00:20 But the story of the production was, I found out about it by hearing a story on the radio

00:25 after the earthquake in Port-au-Prince in 2010.

00:28 So, for those who don't know, it's been 10 years in the making.

00:32 And then, it started then.

00:35 I was listening to the radio and hearing NPR plan and money reports on it.

00:39 But it wasn't until April of 2011 when this guy, Tim Myers, who's the subject of the documentary,

00:44 he lived in Colorado at the time, said, "I'm going to build this school."

00:49 June, July of 2011 is when it started.

00:52 And then, they actually built and fundraised at the same time.

00:56 So, for them, it was from 2011, actually until 2016 is when the school opened.

01:01 And the point of this documentary was to explore what would it be if we just followed a project?

01:07 What could we learn about international aid, about all of these issues that we deal with

01:10 in the film, if we followed a single aid project from beginning to end?

01:16 Part of what took so long, if that's the question, basically, what took you so long, is from

01:21 2011 and 2016, we were just filming.

01:23 And partly not knowing exactly how it's going to end.

01:27 And so, sort of going off to the right.

01:28 And then, 2016 to '20 and '21, basically.

01:31 Because also, when you finish editing a film, you usually have four, six, or 12 months more

01:38 post-production, which I'm not sure if a lot of people realize.

01:41 Sound, graphics, mixing, color correction, all this sort of stuff.

01:47 Once you've locked the creative of the edit, there's a whole other layer that adds on top

01:50 of it.

01:51 So, if you break it up like that, six years to film and four years to edit, it's not terrible.

01:57 I guess if I'm being a little more forthcoming with you, Pat, part of it was that the film

02:03 was challenging to make.

02:07 We didn't want to make a straight commercial for aid worker NGOs.

02:13 We also didn't really believe that we think aid is inherently wrong.

02:17 So, it's not an anti one of these movies.

02:22 Like Poverty Incorporated or Big Men, some of these other documentaries that are in the

02:26 space.

02:27 We wanted to try to make a film that was in between.

02:29 And as artists, we didn't feel like it made sense for us to prescribe the answers to these

02:34 things, but just ask these questions.

02:37 But then that opens up a whole other level of nuance.

02:41 Now you're getting into just straight nuance.

02:42 And nuance takes time and it's hard.

02:46 And how we sort of got through that was doing a lot of feedback screenings, sending it out

02:51 to folks, other filmmakers, doing feedback screenings in person when we could still do

02:55 that, sending it to Haitians, Haitian Americans, people who are familiar with this work, and

03:00 incorporating a lot of feedback to try to make sure it was a film that felt honest.

03:07 What human traits or flaws, which you mentioned at times in the documentary, contribute to

03:12 the state of corruption, which seems to define Haiti?

03:16 And why hasn't a reformer like Mandela, Gandhi, or Dr. King emerged among the sufferers in

03:21 your observation?

03:23 I think I'm compelled to push back on the corruption part first.

03:27 I think one of the things that we're trying to do in the documentary is challenge some

03:31 of the narratives that have formed about Haiti.

03:35 And I'll also say, and when we talk about it, I'll say places like Haiti.

03:39 There's a sort of disaster narrative, poverty narrative, third world economy or developing

03:45 economy narrative that emerges about these things.

03:49 So you see it in Haiti a lot, but it is true elsewhere.

03:54 You have a person who's in a position of power in a rural village where there's no, the central

03:58 government, their federal government, although it's not the same system, but essentially

04:02 their US government, their federal government is non-existent.

04:05 The local government is existent, but not very powerful.

04:09 So you have someone who's in a position of power, whether, and most of the time in a

04:13 place like Haiti, where there's up to 10,000 or more than 10,000 NGOs in a nation that

04:18 only has like 11 million people, that's a lot, funneling in a ton of money.

04:24 Now this person is a conduit for money and they are in an unofficial position.

04:32 And yes, they're going to take maybe some money on the side for their troubles.

04:36 In America, we call that taxes, but there's no taxes really there.

04:42 And so it's just complicated.

04:44 And I think part of this whole experience has been rethinking how we as Americans and

04:48 we in the developing economies look at how business is done elsewhere.

04:54 And so sort of, I'm backdooring into answering your question.

04:56 I think that's the flaw or the challenge or the thing that we, and I think Tim would a

05:01 hundred percent agree with this.

05:03 Like Tim came in with a sort of, this is how we do it in America.

05:07 And we're America, we clearly do it the best.

05:10 Right?

05:11 I'm being sarcastic right now, but it's also not totally sarcastic because it's like, we

05:15 don't have earthquakes.

05:16 When earthquakes hit, they don't, the buildings don't crumble.

05:18 So right.

05:19 That's where it gets immediately complicated to answer sort of anything.

05:23 But I think that's the sort of thing, I think it's like coming in sort of headstrong, I

05:29 think coming in with like, we know what the answers are coming in that this is the only

05:33 way to do it.

05:34 And I would say that actually goes on both sides of the equation on this.

05:38 Both the person who's coming in and also the person who's sort of like, well, this is how

05:41 things are done here.

05:42 It's like, well, maybe things could be done better in Haiti.

05:45 Like, yes, this corruption thing, maybe what if we strengthen the government?

05:48 Like what if there were other things that could happen?

05:50 And why hasn't there been a Mandela or a Gandhi or anything like that?

05:55 I mean, earlier this year, after the president Moisey was assassinated, you know, Biden came

06:02 out and said, we're not going to get involved in Haiti.

06:05 We don't want to do that.

06:06 And that was all the hubbub of the time.

06:07 It's like, oh, we don't want to get involved in that.

06:09 And I would push back on that as well, because we are already involved.

06:12 We've been involved in Haiti since before it was even a country.

06:17 And by involved, I mean, we've been messing with it and messing it up because of deeply

06:23 racist policies.

06:24 I mean, we never even said it was a country until 50 years after it was free.

06:30 It was the second country in the world, I think, or at least in the Western Hemisphere,

06:35 to no longer have a colonial master, the first one being America.

06:39 And we never were like, we never, you know, said you guys exist.

06:44 Why?

06:45 Because it was run by black people, people who used to be slaves who overthrew their

06:48 masters.

06:49 Half the country was still slave.

06:50 The president at the time was Thomas Jefferson, known slave owner and lover.

06:55 So it's just like, it's we've always been involved and we're always in there and we're

06:59 always not helping, essentially.

07:02 Interesting.

07:03 This is Patrick McDowell for HollywoodChicago.com.

How (not) to Build a School in Haiti | movie | 2022 | Official Trailer

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