Danish filmmaker Asger Leth travelled to Haiti in February 2004, just as the Aristide government finally collapsed. Ghosts of Cité Soleil charts the time Leth spent embedded among the Chimerès (roughly translated as ‘ghosts’) – the secret army working for President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Haitian-born US rapper Wyclef Jean also answered Haiti’s 911 after seeing the rough cut in New York and supplied the soundtrack, together with Jerry ‘Wonda’ Duplessis. Angela Meredith talks to Asger Leth about filming in Haiti and using a closet in the press hotel as his base, and his new style of documentary. This ain’t no Hollywood movie…
The opening shot of Ghosts of Cité Soleil makes Haiti’s lush, mountainous landscape look like both the beginning and the end of the world.
The slum town of Cité Soleil is home to migrant workers from Haiti’s countryside: it is a home of tin roofed huts, bare earth and hunger.
The film tells the story of the last days of President Aristide’s government in February 2004, seen through the eyes of two brothers, Bily and Haitian 2Pac. Both are gang leaders – chiefs – in the Chimerès that guard Aristide.
Director Asger Leth was introduced to them by Serbian cinematographer Milos Loncarevic, who became his co-director – and French relief worker, Lele, who tended the sick of Cité Soleil.
Leth says he always meant to make a film about Haiti, and when the political situation escalated in February 2004, “the pieces started falling into place”.
The 37-year-old director has family there – his father, eminent film director Jørgen Leth, has a home in Haiti – and Leth had been a visitor for 20 years, studying news reports assiduously, constantly fascinated by the politics of the place and its people. He visited Cité Soleil regularly, he says, until it became too dangerous. Most of the impetus for making the documentary came from reports he heard directly from the shantytown rather than news reports.
“I was looking for really strong characters,” he told Arts Hub. “And I had this dream of getting into the gangs.”
But his aim was to make a new type of documentary – one that had a compelling dramatic narrative, albeit a real one.
Milos Loncarevic was already in Haiti at the time, taking stills photographs. When Leth learned that he had contacts within the Chimerès, he got on a plane and joined him.
Milos and Lele introduced him to the protagonists of the film – Bily and Haitian 2Pac – who knew the rebel armies were about to advance on Port-au- Prince to depose Aristide and were keen to tell their story.
“They opened up immediately because they had their backs against the wall,” says Leth. They trusted the director because of his contact with Lele and Loncarevic – and because they knew they were probably going to die. “They were running against the clock,” he adds.
The brothers had taken it upon themselves at a young age to become leaders of their community, handing money to children so they could go to school, keeping law and order and meting out punishments. Bily shoots one of his soldiers in the foot for not showing respect and there is constant bickering in the gang over who should carry the guns.
“I am worried about my people. I am not worried about myself,” Bily says towards the end of the film. “It is always people from Cité Soleil who are killed.”
His concern is a constant theme throughout. Bily has a baby daughter, a steady gaze and a need to defend his community. Only when he learns of the identity of Lele’s new lover does his face fall for a moment.
Haitian 2Pac has a disarming smile, a trigger finger – and a dream of becoming a rapper. He does not always agree with Bily’s defence of Aristide – whom he denounces in his music – “but he is my brother”.
Both are in their early twenties and have a highly developed sense of their own identity, despite the deprivations of their background.
Leth says this and their unwavering social conscience are explained by the fact that they were brought up and educated by a religious mother, but orphaned at nine and 10 and left to survive on the streets. They made a living escorting journalists around Cité Soleil and learned to speak English and French fluently, as well as some Spanish.
“They were a totally different breed and very intelligent,” says Leth, who worked undetected by the authorities and self-financed most of the filming by embedding himself in a large broom closet at the press pack’s hotel.
Leth does not own a large production company and the hotel staff agreed to clear it out for him to stay in because he was short of funds.
Because of his close contact with Bily and 2Pac and the Chimerès, Leth and his team knew a lot of what was going to happen in advance; but he had no money for transport and keeping close to the press pack meant he could hitch a ride and “stay in the loop” with what was happening. It also kept him in the know about interviews with political figures.
There is footage of both Aristide and the political opposition Andre Apaid, the latter of whom asserts that the President’s Lavalas party has “put in place an informed criminal machine to help control the formal institutions” – an accusation Aristide always denied, although Bily’s allegiance is clear throughout the film.
It is the position of this criminal machine – the Chimerès – that becomes unsustainable as the rebel armies opposing Aristide begin to advance.
It is a story of uncertain alliances, crossed loyalties, political expediency and the fight to survive, set against the steady heartbeat of Wyclef Jean’s soundtrack.
Leth says the Grammy award-winning rap star became involved after Haitian 2Pac found a way to him via a Haitian American hip hop artist who was visiting Port-au-Prince and who knew a friend, who knew a friend.
The film shows the Clef’s reaction to his first phone call from Haitian 2Pac, who raps down the phone, insisting he listen.
Leth told Arts Hub that, at this point, Jean was not even sure if the phone call and Haitian 2Pac were “for real”. A bemused Clef listens patiently, as instructed.
After Leth flew to New York and showed the musician a rough cut of the film, Jean took the next plane to his homeland and decided to mix some of Haitian 2Pac’s own music with his own for the soundtrack. He also acted as executive producer.
It was never Leth’s intention to make a traditional “talking heads” documentary, he says. The street scenes – definitely for real – have a broad and brutal choreography, thanks to Loncarevic risking his life in the thick of the action.
There is pathos when one of 2Pac’s men is killed and the electricity fails at the wake. Elsewhere, a baby struggles on all fours, learning to walk on the hard earth of Cité Soleil – and a disabled man lies abandoned in death.
But life in the shantytown goes on, and away from the fray the chiefs soap themselves down with the meticulous attention of soldiers – using water from tin cans – before grinning at the camera and picking up their guns again.
Will Leth be revisiting Haiti to film?
He admits he is happy to have had a rest from it, but is getting ready to go back. It is three years on. He is now making a film in the States.
As the last stand erupts in Cité Soleil, an elderly man faces the camera and declares:
“Tell Bush the three little things Haitians need are school for our kids, food and sleep.”
Leth says as a filmmaker he feels he has achieved what he set out to do – to film a documentary with the dramatic structure of a feature film. He also feels proud that he has proved it is possible to film in this way and create a new style of documentary.
But all of it is real, he adds.
As the rebel armies close in on Cité Soleil, Bily echoes the sentiments of the old man:
“We die of hunger already. Why are we going to die by arms?”
Ghosts of Cité Soleil is on release in the UK from 20 July 2007. See the trailer at ghostsofcitesoleil.com.