Private Project

HAITI BETRAYED

Haiti Betrayed reveals how Canada, in contravention of international law, allied with the US and France in early 2004 to overthrow the democratically elected government of Haiti.

  • Elaine Brière
    Director
    Bitter Paradise:The Sell-out of East Timor
  • Elaine Brière
    Director
    Story of the Canadian Merchant Marine
  • Elaine Brière
    Writer
    Story of the Canadian Merchant Marine
  • Elaine Brière
    Writer
    Bitter Paradise:The Sell-out of East Timor
  • Elaine Brière
    Producer
    Story of the Canadian Merchant Marine
  • Elaine Brière
    Producer
    Bitter Paradise:The Sell-out of East Timor
  • Project Type:
    Documentary
  • Genres:
    documentary
  • Runtime:
    1 hour 22 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    July 31, 2019
  • Production Budget:
    150,000 CNY
  • Country of Origin:
    Canada
  • Country of Filming:
    Haiti
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • HOT DOCS!
    Toronto
    Canada
    April 25, 1997
    North American Premiere
    Best Political Documentary
  • Women in Film Festival
    Seattle
    United States
    September 30, 1997
    US premiere
    Best Production Award
Distribution Information
  • no distributor at this time
Director Biography - Elaine Brière, Elaine Brière

Elaine Brière is a filmmaker and photojournalist. Her first film Bitter Paradise: The Sell-out of East Timor, won Best Political Documentary at the l997 HOT DOCS! film festival in Toronto and was aired on TV Ontario, PBS and Swedish National Television. Her 2006 documentary The Story of the Canadian Merchant Seamen was shown extensively in Canada, the US, Australia and New Zealand.

Elaine's photographs have been collected by the visual arts section of the National Archives of Canada. Her work has appeared in The Globe & Mail, the New York Review, Canadian Geographic, the Amnesty International Journal. East Timor, Testimony Photographs, was published in 2004. She received the Order of Timor-Leste in 2016. She completed her first feature documentary, Haiti Betrayed, in July, 2019.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

In 2009 I accompanied my partner, an international aid worker, to some of the poorest parts of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. A few weeks later I was taking photographs in Cham Mas, the central square of the city when a neatly dressed, older man approached me. He thought I was a journalist. He opened his arms, shouting “Blan, blan, (white man) you don’t know what they do to us.” I sensed he was not aggressive but worried that the UN soldiers patrolling the square might detain him. Taking off his hat, he spoke again. “They are killing us! We are poor people! Life is very hard in Cite Soleil. Tell them to stop, tell them to stop.” He began to cry. I took his hand until he composed himself and quietly walked away.

This encounter moved me to the core and was the beginning of a deeper awareness of what was still happening in Haiti since the coup d’état of 2004. On a personal level this film is a response to the impassioned plea of the man I met that day in Cham Mas.