After premiering his joyful Haitian dance film Konpa last year at the Tribeca Film Festival, Haiti-born, Miami-based filmmaker Al’Ikens Plancher returns with Boat People, a new short film on the 1990’s Haitian refugees held in Cuba’s Guantanamo Bay.
The new project is a drastically different message from Konpa, the culturally deep but upbeat dance flick about Haitian language and culture. Plancher told WLRN that Boat People forces Haitians to interrogate their own place in the American dream.
Plancher invites younger Haitian-Americans to specifically reflect on their parents’ struggles during a time of tough U.S. immigration policy changes that mark a major rollback of U.S. immigration protections and parole options for South Florida immigrant communities, including for Haitians…