In 1937, Dominican dictator Rafael Leónidas Trujillo ordered the murder of the Haitian population of the Dominican Republic. Tens of thousands were brutally killed. A language test made the difference between life and death: The Creole-speaking Haitians who could not pronounce the Spanish word “perejil” had to die, which is why this genocide went down in history under the innocuous name of “Parsley Massacre.” Until today, the region is marked by deep traumatisation, racism and classism, which are linked to the colonialist past of this two-state island.
Haitian filmmaker Pierre Michel Jean approaches this rarely examined subject with great delicacy and succeeds in creating a history lesson that combines different historiographies – from factual research to problematic narrative constructions through to the haunting testimonies of the last survivors – in a kind of montage of knowledge. At the same time, his documentary addresses the complexity of collective guilt and the important question of who can and should say “mea culpa” today, more than eighty years later. A performance workshop organised by theatre director Daphné Ménard, which brings together artists from both states, and the memories of the elderly Henry Noncent form the heart of this filmic monument whose empathy makes it compelling.