‘I Am Not Your Negro’ Director Raoul Peck Sets Next Documentary on Assassination of Haitian President
Director Raoul Peck, who helmed the 2016 documentary “I Am Not Your Negro,” has announced his new documentary project. “The Hands That Held the Knives” will detail the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse in 2021.
The documentary, which took over two years to make, is said to be in the same vein as the works of Graham Greene and John Le Carré. Peck was given access to the people involved in Moïse’s killing, and even secretly filmed in Haiti’s prison system. The documentary will lay out Haitian politics, its relationship to the U.S. and the corruption and criminality the country deals with, including drugs and weapons trafficking.
“I am eager to tell my country’s real story beyond the usual exotic clichés and preposterous clickbait,” Peck said in a prepared statement. “I want to reveal for once, without holding back, the core stories and real reasons for Haiti’s tragic situation.”
Peck’s previous work includes the documentary “I Am Not Your Negro,” about racism in the United States alongside the career of writer James Baldwin. The documentary would go on to win a BAFTA and César Award, as well as being nominated for an Oscar for Best Documentary. He has also crafted the film “Silver Dollar Road” and the HBO miniseries “Exterminate All the Brutes.”
Peck is producing the film under his Velvet Films banner alongside Jigsaw Productions, with Imagine Documentaries, Anonymous Content and Double Agent, who is financing the project. Alex Gibney, for Jigsaw, and Blair Foster are also producers on the project. Sara Bernstein is executive producer on behalf of Imagine along with Anonymous Content’s Nick Shumaker, David Levine and Jessica Grimshaw. Dana O’Keefe produces on behalf of Double Agent, with Teddy Schwarzman, Yariv Milchan and Michael Heimler executive producing.
“This is a story that only Raoul Peck can tell,” Gibney said. “A former Minister of Culture in Haiti, Raoul has been in the belly of the beast of Haiti’s politics and is the only filmmaker alive with the knowledge of the country and the extraordinary skill as a filmmaker to be able to tell this tale, which has global implications, as governments fall, one by one, to the ruthless pursuit of money and power.”
The post ‘I Am Not Your Negro’ Director Raoul Peck Sets Next Documentary on Assassination of Haitian President appeared first on TheWrap.