Raoul Peck (born 9 September 1953) in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, is a filmmaker, of both documentary and feature films, and a political activist. He is known for using historical, political, and personal characters to tackle and recount societal issues and recount historical events.[1] He notably directed Lumumba (2000), a feature film inspired by Patrice Lumumba’s role in the independence of the Republic of Congo. He also directedThe Young Karl Marx, a film about the adolescence of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in Germany, Paris, and London.[2]
Peck attended schools in the DRC (Kinshasa), in the United States (Brooklyn), and in France (Orléans) where he earned a baccalaureate, before studying industrial engineering and economics at Berlin's Humboldt University.[3] Peck always had artistic dreams, but these were frowned upon in Haiti, his home country. He then decided to wait until after completing his studies at the University of Humboldt to return to Haiti and pursue his cinematic career. He says, “It’s what saved me. I didn’t come to Europe thinking that I was going to stay. I knew that I had to educate myself as much as possible then return to Haiti secretly if need be.”[4] Peck spent a year as a New York City taxi driver and worked (1980–85) as a journalist and photographer before earning a film degree (1988) from the German Film and Television Academy Berlin (DFFB) in West Berlin.
In March 1996, Peck was asked to become Haiti’s Minister of Culture in the government of Prime Minister Rosney Smarth. Smarth resigned in June, 1997, and Peck resigned in September, 1997.[1] He detailed his experiences in this position in a book, Monsieur le Ministre… jusqu'au bout de la patience. Prime Minister Smarth wrote an afterword for the book, and Russell Banks wrote the preface to the first edition. On the book's re-release in 2015, Radio Metropole Haïti reviewed it as a portrait of "a formidable democratic movement that profoundly changed the country."
In 1986 Peck created the film production company Velvet Film in Germany, which then produced or co-produced all his documentaries, feature films and TV dramas.[4]
Peck initially developed short experimental works and socio-political documentaries, before moving on to feature films....
Peck received international attention for Lumumba, his 2000 fiction feature film about Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba and the period around the independence of the Belgian Congo in June 1960.
A book of screenplays and images from four of Peck's major features and documentary films, called Stolen Images, was published in February 2012 by Seven Stories Press.
He was elected President of La Fémis, the French state film school, on 10 January 2010. In 2012, he was named as a member of the Jury for the Main Competition at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. He won the Best Documentary prize at the Trinidad & Tobago Film Festival in 2013 for Fatal Assistance.
The Belgian segment of the shoot for his film The Young Karl Marx resumed in October 2015. The film is about the friendship between Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, authors of the Communist Manifesto, during their youth.
He directed many short feature films, including De Cuba traigo un cantar (1982), which described the visit of "Carlos Puebla y Los Tradicionales," a Cuban group that played traditional Cuban music, to West Berlin and their concert for peace.[5] He also directed Leugt (1983), another short, whose topic was Ronald Reagan's visit to Berlin and the violent protests that arose. Then, in 1983, he continued with Exzerpt, where he took on a critical and playful point of view on Grüne Woche (Green Week),the biggest dietary and agricultural fair in Germany. In 1984, he directed Merry Christmas Deutschland, a report about the history lessons of Christmas day in Helmut Kohl's 1984 Germany.
While still at the German Film and Television Academy Berlin (DFFB), Peck shot his first feature film, Haitian Corner (1987). The film portrays a Haitian man exiled in New York trying to forget being tortured by François Duvalier's secret police. When he accidentally runs into a man he recognizes as a former torturer, part of the "Tontons Macoutes," he must choose between vengeance and forgiveness.[6]
When a producer asked Peck to write a screenplay about a Swiss doctor's "downward spiral" in Africa before returning to his native country as a "liberated" man, Peck made a counteroffer and attempted to launch a fiction project around Patrice Lumumba for the first time. This project questioned the point of view of the "black" hero, which was contrary to the usual approach where a "European" character told this genre, which investors accepted more readily (example: Steve Biko in Cry Freedom).[7] Because of these challenges, he decided to produce a creative documentary instead. In 1991, this turned into Lumumba, Death of a Prophet, a film about the death of the 'father of Congo's independence' in January 1961, Patrice Lumumba. Peck wanted to emphasize Lumumba’s place in the continent's history.[8]
Two years later in 1993, Peck returned to a more Haitian- specific theme with The Man by The Shore, a fictional story about the beginning of "Duvalierism" and the implementation of the process of terror through the eyes of an eight-year-old girl.[9][10] The story of "Sarah, a girl who accepts her past demons and decides to live with them," got him a nomination for a Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.[11]
In 1994, Peck directed the documentary Desounen, Dialogue with Death. The documentary, which contains a fictitious narrator and real interviews with Haitians, focuses on the tragedies caused by the economic collapse of Haiti, and explores how different people cope.[12]
Also in 1994, Peck wrote and directed Haiti, Silence of the Dogs, which documented the confrontation between the democratically-elected Haitian President, Jean-Bertrand Aristide (who was in exile in the US) and his prime minister, Robert Malval (who stayed in Haiti trying to establish democracy and opposing the military-appointed president, Emile Jonassaint).[13]
He also received the Nestor Almendros Prize of Human Rights Watch that same year. Six years later in 2000, the same organization gave him the Irene Diamond award for his work in favor of human rights.[3]
Raoul Peck has also made his film debut on Television. In 1994, he teamed up with American TV channel HBO to release his film Sometimes in April, about the Rwandan genocide. The film starred Idris Elba.[14]
In 1998, Peck was commissioned by the museum curator Catherine David to create a video essay about documenta X, a contemporary art exhibition, in Kassel, Germany: Chère Catherine.[15]
Also in 1998, Peck directed It's Not About Love, commissioned by the French television channel Arte. This mystery about exile and memory centers around a woman born in Haiti and living in New York City, and was the start of his collaborations with the producer Jacques Bidou.[16]
Peck continued his partnership with HBO recently in 2021 by directing a four part docu-series, Exterminate all the Brutes (April 2021). In this series about the genocidal aspects of European colonialism, Peck uses Sven Lindqvist’s book Exterminate All the Brutes, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States, and Michel-Rolph Trouillot’s Silencing the Past to expose the realities of the past and recount the “story of survival and violence.” Peck himself narrates the series using both old and new footage and animation to highlight how white supremacy has been at the historic center of nations and has led to “exterminations” of people around the world. In the trailer for the series, Raoul Peck sets the tone and his point of view of the story by stating,“I am an immigrant from a - country. Neutrality is not an option... Over the centuries we lost all bearings because the past has a future we never expect.”[17]
In 2000, Thierry Garrel, responsible for the Arte documentaries, launched a collection of two by four parts, La Bourse et La Vie. Raoul Peck directed the first part, Profit and Nothing But! in 2001. The film takes audiences through the struggles of his native country, Haiti, and the toll that capitalism has on its people.[18]
Raoul Peck decided to go back to take on the character of Patrice Lumumba with a feature film that was accessible to the public. Lumumba was released in 2000 and recounts the story of Congolese leader, Patrice Lumumba. This was Peck’s second film on Lumumba, the first was the documentary film, Lumumba, Death of a Prophet (1990). Lumumba recieved eight nominations and won three awards. It was also chosen to be in the Cannes Directors Fortnight. The film won Best Feature Film at the Acapulco Black Film Festival (2001) and the Panafrican Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou (2001), and was the winning film in the United States’ ‘Peace’ category at the Political Film Society (2002).[19]
When asked why he chose to direct a second film on Lumumba, Peck said, “... when I started research for the feature I was writing pages and pages and I realized that I was writing for another film. I was creating a film about discovering my own family in Congo and my own memories in Congo. And I rediscovered pictures my mother took and 8mm films my father shot. So all of this brought up a lot for me and the documentary is an expression of my personal relationship to Congo. For me the documentary and the feature film are two different stories. And when I came back to the feature film it was a very direct confrontation with the man Lumumba himself."[7]
This HBO T.V. movie in English came out in 2005. In this war drama based on actual events, Raoul Peck recounts Rwanda’s 1994 massacre. A Hutu soldier (Idris Elba) fights for his family as they try to save themselves from being a part of the “almost 800,000 people” killed during the “uprising.”[14]
Sometimes in April won “TV Program of the Year” at the AFI Awards (2006) and took home the award for 'Best Film' at the Durban International Film Festival (2005) in South Africa.[20]
After the success of Lumumba in the United States, T.V channel HBO, who bought and broadcasted the film (the first English dubbed airing in American television), offered Raoul Peck a project that would later become Hotel Rwanda (United Artists, produced by Terry George). Raoul Peck posed a certain number of generally "unacceptable" conditions in the United States. He hesitated to make the film because of “the lack of film infrastructure.”[21] He wanted to be able to tell the story from the point of view of the Rwandan people and be able to shoot in Rwanda. Unexpectedly, Collin Collender, the President of HBO films, accepted all of his demands and the project began production.[22]
In 2001, while in Rwanda, Peck became overwhelmed and convinced of the need to react to the Rwandan Genocide. Peck then immersed himself in the story of Rwanda and studied multiple reports, books, documents and collected various testimonies to try to understand the Rwanda of today.[21]
Lumumba's success in Africa opened many doors for Raoul Peck, and he was able to shoot in Rwanda, despite the initial difficulties (logistics, insurance, human resources). Peck said, "I felt we could make a film in which the Rwandan people can recognize themselves and participate at every level ... that it make sense to the people here first and then to the rest of the world…After many months here, we are convinced filming in Rwanda was the right thing to do…. every single line of this film, of the screenplay, is authentic and based on facts."[21]
Because of the moral agreement that Raoul Peck concluded with the Rwandans, they were the first to see the film. An American studio even allowed the world premiere of his film in African territory. Thousands of people watched two projections on a giant screen in the Kigali arena. "I could only imagine making this film if the Rwandans were the first to see it. Whatever the critics say does not matter to me. The only people whose judgment I would accept are the Rwandan people."[23]
In competition in Berlin, Sometimes in April, aired in the United States with huge success and was even made available by the national public chain, PBS, for free. This unique airing was made available to the public and followed by a panel discussion.[24]
The film follows author James Baldwin, as he uses his “unfinished novel, Remember This House” to highlight the history of society’s poor treatment of African American’s in the United States.[25]
The Young Karl Marx was released on March 2, 2017, in Germany. The film is about the friendship between Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, authors of the Communist Manifesto, during their youth.[15] While the film follows Marx and Engels, women also play a part in the story. Jenny Marx assisted with the final draft of the Manifesto. At the same time, Mary Burns plays the role of mediator between the two philosophers.[26]
Raoul Peck talks about how Marx's influence throughout his education; “All I am today is because of the structure that I got when I was studying the work of Marx...At that time, in the 1970s and 1980s, you needed to confront yourself with those books because it is your past, it is your present.”[27] When asked what research he used for the film, Peck mentioned that the letters between the characters in the film assisted in the creation of the film. “When you read the letters between Marx, Engels, [Marx’s wife] Jenny and their friends, they’re incredibleIt’s lively, it’s funny, it’s ironic. They were jokers with sharp tongues.”[26]
Since the beginning of his career, Raoul Peck’s filmography reflects an ensemble of films with a particular writing style. His subjects are historical, political, and personal characters. His work considers his fragmented biography (with the intellectual and economic conflicted perspective). It also structurally exploits the effectiveness of American cinema. In this way, he uses more complex approaches like collages, time overlay of the story, flash-forward, or flashback, the recurrent use of voice-over, the author, character, and the object point of view according to the needs of the project. These multiple approaches, both formal and structurally aesthetic, allow for the organic mix of politics, history, poetry, and the personal.[1]
Writing is more complex for Raoul Peck. With this in mind, finding a writing partner (this task is difficult as is) with a biographical, philosophical, or a political profile that permits a common or complementary approach was a difficult process. Nonetheless, Peck found a match in screenwriter Pascal Bonitzer when writing The Young Karl Marx. He said, “The artistic challenge — and it took me ten years with Pascal to write this story — was the writing. That was the most difficult part. We were making a film about the evolution of an idea, which is impossible. To be able to have political discourse in a scene, and you can follow it, and it’s not simplified, and it’s historically true. This is the accomplishment.”[28]
Raoul Peck had the opportunity to renew this type of collaboration in the United States with writer Russel Banks (with two ongoing projects).
The documentary approach is similar to that of the drama for Peck (voice-over, a mix of politics, history, memory, poetry). For that matter, whether it be Haitian Corner, Lumumba, Sometimes in April, or L'Affaire Villemin, the uses of reality, documents, and truthful and lived details, is constant. Simultaneously, his films' political and personal factors are affected by his interest in politics and social issues. He says,『I came into the film industry because of politics, because of content—not because I wanted to make Hollywood films.』Peck wants to change the way people view history; he wants to make audiences feel and cause a reaction within them. During an interview with Professor Meryem BelkaïdatBowdoin College in Maine, Peck stated, "Especially in America, cinema is an industry that claims that its purpose is entertainment … The tendency is to please the audience, it is not so much to provoke."[29]
Personal Life (stays the same)
Awards and Honors
| Year | Original title[30] | English title | Credits |
| 1987-88 | Haitian Corner (feature film, 1987–88) | — | Director, Writer |
| 1991 | Lumumba: La mort du prophète (documentary) | Lumumba: Death of a Prophet | Director, Writer,
Producer, Editor |
| 1993 | L’Homme sur les quais | The Man by the Shore | Director, Writer |
| 1994 | Desounen: Dialogue avec la mort (documentary) | Desounen: Dialogue with Death | Director |
| 1997 | Documenta X - Die Filme (Documentary) | — | Director |
| 2000 | Lumumba | — | Director, Writer, Producer |
| 2001 | Le profit et rien d’autre! (documentary) | Profit & Nothing But! Or Impolite Thoughts on the Class Struggle | Director, Editor |
| 2013 | Assistance mortelle (documentary) | Fatal Assistance | Director, Writer (concept),
Producer |
| 2014 | Meurtre a Pacot | Murder in Pacot | Director, Writer, Producer |
| 2016 | I Am Not Your Negro (documentary) | — | Director, Writer (scenario),
Producer |
| 2017 | Le jeune Karl Marx (feature film) | The Young Karl Marx [26] | Director, Writer,
Producer, Actor (uncredited) |
| Year | Original title[30] | English title | Credits |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1982 | De Cuba traigo un cantar | - | Director |
| 1983 | Exzerpt | - | Director |
| 1983 | Leugt | - | Director |
| 1984 | The Minister of the Interior is On Our Side | - | Director |
| 1984 | Merry Christmas Deutschland | - | Director, Writer,
Editor, Cinematographer |
| 1994 | Haïti - Le silence des chiens | Haiti - Silence of the Dogs | Director |
| 1997 | Chère Catherine | - | Director, Writer |
| 2010 | On bosse ici! On vit ici! On reste ici | - | Director |
| Year | Original title[30] | English title | Credits |
| 1998 | Corps plongés (TV movie) | It's Not About Love | Director, Writer |
| 2006 | L’Affaire Villemin (TV series, six parts) | - | Director, Writer |
| 2008 | L’école du Pouvoir | - | Director, Writer |
| 2005 | Sometimes In April | - | Director, Writer,
Executive Producer |
| 2009 | Moloch Tropical (TV movie) | - | Director, Writer, Producer |
| 2021 | Exterminate All the Brutes (TV docu-series) | - | Director, Writer, Producer |
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
Baldwin, J, Peck, R, Strauss, A, (2017). I Am Not Your Negro: A Companion Edition to the Documentary Film Directed by Raoul Peck. Vintage International. ISBN 9780525434696.
Pressley-Sannon, Toni (2015). Raoul Peck: Power, Politics, and the Cinematic Imagination. LEXINGTON BOOKS. ISBN 978-0739198780.
