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Together with David Belle, the institute’s founder, Nocenti developed a two-part vision for film education in Haiti. On one level, it was purely practical. “We wanted to get them jobs in the very small film industry that exists in Haiti. So they learned how to operate the cameras, how to hold a boom.” But Belle and Nocenti also wanted to encourage the development of an indigenous and distinctive brand of Haitian cinema, inspired in part by “Nollywood,” the no-budget film industry of Nigeria, among the largest in the developing world. “We’re beginning to see the emergence of an auteur vision, through Haitian eyes,” Nocenti says. “It’s influenced by their culture, their art, by the voodoo tradition. Because these filmmakers are not copying anybody, what’s coming out of them is very pure. They weren’t raised in a video store. They’ve never seen a Quentin Tarantino movie.” (Here’s a short film Nocenti’s class shot in four days last September.) (via Film Salon - Salon.com)
