By Kate Dempsey
Mothers-to-be in the United States are able to deliver their baby either by a drive to a local hospital, in the comfort of their own home, or through other means. For mothers in Haiti amidst the current political and humanitarian crisis, trying to deliver a baby means navigating around uprisings, violent gangs, and crumbling infrastructure, where the violence can even reach into their own homes. In the short film “N Ap Boule” (“We Are Burning”) by Haitian filmmaker Alexandrine Benjamin, she examines maternal health amidst the crisis, and the broader struggle Haitians are experiencing as the country faces revolts.
Violent protests in Haiti began in 2018, when opposition due to fraudulent elections, economic inequality, and corruption in the government grew with many calling for Haiti’s president, Jovenel Moïse, to step down, according to the Council on Foreign Affairs. Protests erupted across the country, many partaking in burning businesses, blocking roads, and clashing with the police in what became known as the Peyi Lòk, or “Operation Lockdown” movement, according to the New Yorker.
To Benjamin, one of the main goals of creating the film was to highlight what everyday people, especially mothers-to-be, are experiencing amidst the crisis as the young couple in the film struggles to get to the hospital once the mother goes into labor.
“It was at first trying to analyze the impact of the Peyi Lòk of the movement, the negative impact on people in Haiti, and then we decided to focus it on maternal health because most of the time women are the primary victims, the first victims of those kind of violence,” Benjamin told The Vanguard. “I myself, I witnessed a lot of pregnant women trying to get to hospital to give birth, and it was so difficult for them.”
As news articles out of Haiti continue to mount about the killings and kidnappings of citizens, Benjamin used the film as a means to give life to these otherwise anonymous citizens.
“Most of the time we see like a short article saying, ‘Oh, that person has been killed,’ or ‘A couple has been kidnapped,’ but we never had the chance to follow a single family to understand the struggle of that family. Where do they come from? Those people, they have a life, they have people who love them, they loved life. So I wanted to give back,” Benjamin said.
In selecting the role of the mother-to-be, Benjamin chose an actress who had been through similar circumstances. For Ericka Julie Jean Louis, who plays the mother in the film, the subject matter is personal, experiencing the crisis in Haiti firsthand and utilizing that experience to shape her performance.
“It was really something that [made] me emotional because I [had] my first child at 2016, and I remember [how] the health was in Haiti,” Louis told The Vanguard. “It was hard for me to find a hospital to find the best caring for my situation.”
Since 2021, the violence and political turmoil has spiked further after Moïse was assassinated by his opposition, leaving the country struggling for a stable government, according to the Associated Press. As rival gangs fight for power, conditions in the country have remained perilous with many unable to escape the violence. Shooting the film began in 2021 right as Haiti’s president was assassinated. For Benjamin and the rest of the crew, who filmed on location in the southern town of Jacmel, the assassination made it difficult to complete the film without the threat of violence.
“It wasn’t quite safe for us […] we planned to shoot the movie for like seven days, and we ended up spending 11 days because we went on location like three times on three different days,” Benjamin told The Vanguard. “We had to stop because of the murdering of the president.”
The humanitarian crisis since Moïse’s assassination has continued to grow. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), an estimated 5.5 million Haitians require humanitarian assistance, with women facing a disproportionate amount of the increase in violence. Even with the dire state of the country, Benjamin saw how many in Haiti are unaware of how bad the situation is, with many being trapped in their own homes.
“When I speak to my people in Haiti, they were like, ‘No, it’s okay. No, it’s not that bad.’ And I was like, ‘Oh my God. They are [in] the situation and they do not realize how bad it is,” she said. “So how do I create something, some kind of mirror for ourselves to look at and understand that people do not live like that. I don’t think it’s a life for people to be stuck [in] their house for like a month, for two months, for three months, because there are people outside having barricades or with guns.”
In naming the film, Benjamin wanted to create a meaningful title that reflected the complicated situation Haitians face while acknowledging that the country is growing exceedingly treacherous for its citizens. In addition, the title reflects the universality of being Haitian, and serves as a uniting phrase for the diaspora.
“This title is more like an irony […] It’s a word we use a lot in Haiti, ‘Boule.’ So we use it to tell people how great we are doing […] but then also we are burning that because during that period of time, we burn a lot of stuff. We burn hospital[s], we burn school[s], we burn universities, and now we are burning people,” she said. “So I was like, so what are you guys doing? […] I wanted something deep, something to resonate with people and also something to resonate with the world. Because anywhere in the world you go and people ask, ‘Where are you from?’ They be like, ‘I’m Haitian. Sak pase,’ and then we respond back.”
For those in the film, living in Haiti has become living amongst the fire. A goal for creating the film was to create a legacy: to show that Haitians are advocating for a better future.
“The country is burning, even people cannot sleep in their own home[s]. This is what this title means to me. And for me, it was the best way to say, ‘we try to take care of ourself, even [as] everything, our one house, is burning,’” said Louis. “I’m thinking also of my daughter. And for me, it was like a legacy […] My heart is the way I can speak to people, is the only way I can say or I feel about what [is] happening [in] this country. So as a mother [it] is like legacy.”
Benjamin and the rest of her team hope that the film continues to have more screenings so that Haitians both at home and abroad, as well as the rest of the international community, take note of the dire situation in the country. Beyond that, Benjamin hopes that the film will bring the Haitian community together through their shared love of their home country and in the fight for a better future.
“It’s for us Haitian[s] to see our struggle. I want them to see this movie, to understand nowhere else in this world is going to be Haiti. […] Our people, our diaspora, they are the one I need to see this movie because they’ve seen better, they know better, they can help Haitians based in Haiti to rebuild this nation,” said Benjamin. “We need this, we need this for us because we’re a great nation.”