TWICE INTO OBLIVION (L'OUBLI TUE DEUX FOIS) — HAITI. PREMIERE & TALK

19th Native Spirit Festial, Indigenous Studies Discussion Group (ISDG) & Haiti Support Group present the premiere of TWICE INTO OBLIVION (L'OUBLI TUE DEUX FOIS) at TRINITY HALL LECTURE THEATRE, TRINITY LANE (entrance at end of Senate House Passage), CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY CB2 1TJ followed by discussion with Aïda Roumer (tbc)

TWICE INTO OBLIVION (L'OUBLI TUE DEUX FOIS) 2025 | 1h 40min | Haiti
Kreyòl and Spanish, w/English Subs

Synopsis: Haiti and the Dominican Republic share the island of Quisqueya and a hidden genocide. In 1937, Dominican dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo ordered the massacre of over 20,000 Haitian immigrants living in the Dominican Republic. Daphné Ménard, a Haitian theatre director, brought together actors from both parts of the island to work on this event. It was an unprecedented creative project, demanding people from both sides to summon up the darker realms of their histories.

Director Biography: Pierre Michel Jean is a Haitian photographer and documentary filmmaker. Based in Port-au-Prince, Pierre Michel studied Social Communications and Legal Sciences at the Université d'État d'Haïti (UEH). He graduated from "Haïti Reporters", then from CEPEC (Centre d'Étude Photographiques et Cinématographiques).
With friends, Pierre Michel founded Kolektif 2 Dimansyon (K2D), a group of independent Haitian visual artists and journalists. For 5 years, he collaborated with the AFP news agency, and his reports were published in international media such as: Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Le Monde, Le Temps, etc. Since 2015, alongside his career as a photographer, Pierre Michel has been making documentary films: Shadow healers (23'), Toro La Cou (65'), Untitled, the story of a January Tuesday (24'), etc. Several festivals and exhibitions have already featured his work. In his photography as in his cinema, Pierre Michel takes a long-term look at such themes as our occupation of urban space, Haitian memory of events such as the 1937 massacre and the earthquake, and the Dominican-Haitian border as a space of margin, etc. Forgetting kills twice is the title of his second feature-length documentary, dealing with the still painful memory of the "Perejil Massacre".

Speaker: Aïda Roumer Chair, Haiti Support Group. Aïda is a PhD candidate in Political Economy at Goethe University Frankfurt. In her research, she focuses on the economic interdependencies between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, with a particular emphasis on current border relations. Being of Haitian-German descent she conducts her research in English, French, Kreyol and Spanish and currently lives.

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