British Council Logo UK Films Database
Project Detail

HAITI: THE SLEEPING GIANT

Synopsis

This documentary looks at the contribution of Haiti. On January 1st of 1804, Haiti became the second nation in the new world to establish an independent government. These achievements marked not only a burst of independence, but also emancipation from slavery. It started not as a result of a revolt, but out of the depths of human squalor. In 1787 the French revolution rocked France. The framers of the French constitution drafted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, and listed the inalienable rights of the individual. The right to liberty, property, security and resistance to oppression, as well as the rights to freedom of speech, were guaranteed. Unlike the US declaration of independence, the French revolution was intended to apply universally. It not only set fourth the fundamental rights of the French citizen, but also acknowledged these rights to all men, without exception. When the Haitian slaves started demanding their rights promised by the French revolution, the French colonizers quickly reminded them that the Declaration was intended for the Europeans only. This prompted the Africans to revolt, resulting in the first black republic.

Details

Year
2007
Type of project
Shorts
Running time
60 mins
Format
Video
Director
Love Joel Aryeetey
Producer
Love Joel Aryeetey
Editor
Love Joel Aryeetey
Screenwriter
Love Joel Aryeetey
Director of Photography
Curtis Nichouls
Sound
Love Joel Aryeetey
Composer
Gwyn Allen

Genre

Black

Categories

Documentary

Production Status

Complete

Production Company

LA Pictures

Page updates

This page was last updated on 12th May 2025. Please let us know if we need to make any amendments or request edit access by clicking below.

Suggest amendments

See also

You may also be interested in other relevant projects in the database.

Africa Express Africa Express

Director: Emilio Guerrero Alexander

Year: 2026

Founded in 2004 by Damon Albarn and Ian Birrell, the UK music collective Africa Express has spent two decades bringing artists together across borders. In February 2024 it arrived in the Americas for the first time. Over eight days in Las Estacas, Mexico, more than 60 musicians from Africa, Latin America, Europe and the United States came together to rehearse, perform and create an album from scratch. Following Africa Express from Mexico through Europe and back, the film becomes a poetic journey through music, memory and imagination, celebrating the power of collaboration and community as reality slowly blurs with fantasy. With no single protagonist, the collective itself is the main character and music is its language. Africa Express is a portrait of a fleeting community and of what strangers from different worlds can build when they truly listen to each other.

Art / Artists Music
Brian Johnson The Lives of Brian

Director: Bill Jones, Ben Timlett

Year: 2027

An intimate and wildly entertaining portrait of rock legend Brian Johnson, THE LIVES OF BRIAN charts his journey from working-class Newcastle to fronting AC/DC and recording the best-selling rock album of all time, told with his trademark wit, raw honesty, and a touch of Monty Python flair.

Biography Comedy Docufiction Music
Paolo sitting at dining table with pet dog in the foreground I was Paolo

Director: Ian McDonald

Year: 2027

An intimate portrait of Paolo Avenati, a once-aspiring filmmaker living with a progressive fatal mitochondrial disease, and his fiercely devoted mother, Loretta. As the illness takes over Paolo's mind and body, leaving him completely dependent on his mother, she becomes his voice, revealing the quiet realities of caregiving and anticipatory grief. Moving between moments of tenderness, humour and sorrow, the film traces a mother’s enduring love as she learns that sometimes the deepest expression of love is learning how to let go.

Disabilities