Haiti Speaks (2020)

Haiti Speaks follows volunteers from The Gift of Sight, an American non-profit that makes an annual medical mission to Haiti, seeing hundreds of patients in the span of a week. This trip, however, is different. It comes just 100 days after the 7.0 earthquake that wiped out so much of the nation and killed so many of its people in 2010. Over the course of 5 thematic chapters featuring excerpts from acclaimed Haitian writers, the film weaves between the capital Port-au-Prince and the rural community of Lascahobas, speaking to Haitians from all walks of life on health care, education, economics, foreign relations, and the earthquake. Visual vignettes capture the feeling of standing on Haiti's shores, swimming in her lakes, trudging through her mountainous forests, and drifting through the rubble filled city streets, as the people share their stories intertwined with the greater narrative of their beloved country. Through this, the documentary ultimately uncovers what neither the earthquake nor discrimination and racism can destroy: The nation's spirit. Despite the hardship, the nation "became one body" after the earthquake. It becomes evident that the exact thing that held Haiti together through the earthquake is the very thing that has gotten the country through years of injustice and struggle. Call it pride. Call it spirit. Call it hope. Whatever it is, you feel it in Haiti Speaks.