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Unfinished Country
Tuesday, September 6, 2005
Battered by hurricanes, embroiled in political turmoil, plagued by kidnappings and largely ignored by the international community, Haiti is trying, yet again, to create democracy. As the Western hemisphere's poorest country attempts to organize for November presidential elections, hardened veterans of its endless cycle of uprisings and downfalls are trading guns for voter registration cards, warily giving the election process their support.
In a character-driven narrative, we capture life on Haiti's streets and among its power-brokers by interweaving five personal stories. We follow Patrick Fequière, one of nine Electoral Council officials, as he navigates faulty generators, citizens lacking identification papers, and countless other headaches of the voter registration process amidst rising violence. We go behind the scenes with the strongmen of the National Front for the Reconstruction of Haiti party, Butteur Métayer and Guy Philippe, former rebels who drove President Jean-Bertrand Aristide from power in 2004. As Métayer organizes his constituents in a region historically known to be an epicenter of revolution, Philippe is hitting the campaign trail in a bid for the presidency. In a one-room hovel in the polluted, poverty-stricken slums of Port-au-Prince, Elizna Nicholas is raising seven children as a single mother and becoming increasingly disillusioned by the unfulfilled promises of democracy. Upriver from her slum, businessman Serge Cantave valiantly lobbies to protect a state park from the ravages of illegal logging and slash-and-burn agriculture that endanger the country's chances of economic recovery.
Through unfettered access to political strongmen, gangsters turned presidential hopefuls, and ordinary Haitian citizens, WIDE ANGLE reveals the country's struggle to fashion a true representative government out of a volatile failed state.
 Watch a preview video
Producer Daniel Morel, one of Haiti's leading photojournalists, is a freelance photographer for REUTERS, THE NEW YORK TIMES, NEWSWEEK, the MIAMI HERALD, and others. Previously staff photographer for ASSOCIATED PRESS in Haiti and Haiti Bureau Chief of HAITIAN TIMES, a Haitian-American newsweekly, his work has received numerous awards including the AP's Award for Excellence and the Overseas Press Club of America's Citation for Excellence.
Director Whitney Dow co-produced with Marco Williams the acclaimed TWO TOWNS OF JASPER, a feature-length documentary about the 1998 racially motivated murder of James Byrd Jr. in Jasper, Texas. Broadcast on PBS's POV in 2003, the film was awarded a duPont-Columbia Award and a Peabody Award.
Writer Jane Regan is the Haiti correspondent for REUTERS TV and has been a freelance correspondent for the MIAMI HERALD, CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, BOSTON GLOBE, Interpress Service, Latinamerica Press, and others. With Daniel Morel she received the North American Congress' Sam Chavkin Prize for Integrity in Latin American Journalism.
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