MADAN SARA: SCREENING + DISCUSSION

6 PM MARCH 8th

On International Women's Day 2021, the Center for Experimental Ethnography is pleased to present Haitian filmmaker Etant Dupain's feature "Madan Sara: Pouvwa Fanm Aysiyen" (Madan Sara: The Power of Haitian Women) followed by a discussion between Etant Dupain (Director, Madan Sara), Dr. Régine Michelle Jean-Charles (Associate Professor of French and the Graduate Program Director at Boston College), and Lunise Cerin (Editor, Madan Sara). The CEE screening of Madan Sara follows a four-day series of free, public screenings of the film throughout Haiti, supported by matenmidiswa pwodiksyon

"The women known as Madan Sara are on the forefront of the battle for a more robust and inclusive economy in Haiti. They work tirelessly to buy, distribute, and sell food and other essentials in markets through the country. Despite the obstacles faced by the women working in a sector that lacks investment, infrastructure and state assistance, the Madan Sara continue to be one of the most critical parts of the Haitian economy and of who we are as a country. The Madan Sara documentary tells the stories of these indefatigable women who work at the margins to make Haiti’s economy run. Despite facing intense hardship and social stigma, the hard work of the Madan Sara puts their children through school, houses their families, and helps to ensure a better life for generations to come. This film amplifies the calls of the Madan Sara as they speak directly to society to share their dreams for a more just Haiti."

WATCH THE DISCUSSION

"The women known as Madan Sara in Haiti work tirelessly to buy, distribute, and sell food and other essentials in markets through the country. Despite the obstacles faced by the women working in a sector that lacks investment, infrastructure and state assistance, the Madan Sara continue to be one of the most critical parts of the Haitian economy and of who we are as a country."---Etant Dupain

Meet The Discussants

Etant Dupain
Director, Madan Sara

Etant Dupain is a journalist, filmmaker, and community organizer. For over a decade, he has worked as a producer on documentaries and for international news media outlets including Al Jazeera, TeleSur, BBC, CNN, Netflix, PBS, and Vice. Etant founded an alternative media project in Haiti to enable citizen journalists to provide access to information in Haitian Creole for and about internally-displaced people, aid accountability, and politics. Now, moved by the strength of his mother and the women known as the Madan Sara who make Haiti’s economy run, he’s making his first personal film.

Dr. Régine Michelle Jean-Charles 
Associate Professor of French and African and African Diaspora Studies, Boston College

Dr. Régine Michelle Jean-Charles is a feminist literary scholar and activist who has been working on issues surrounding rape culture for the past 20 years. She is currently Associate Professor of French and African and African Diaspora Studies at Boston College. Her scholarship and teaching on world literatures in French includes work on Black France, Sub-Saharan Africa, Caribbean literatures, Haiti and the Haitian diaspora. She also teaches classes on race and gender like “Where #blacklivesmatter Meets #metoo” and “Black Feminisms 101.” She holds a BA from the University of Pennsylvania, and an AM and PhD from Harvard University.  She has received fellowships from the Ford Foundation, the Mellon Mays Foundation, and the Woodrow Wilson Foundation. 

Her first book, Conflict Bodies:  The Politics of Rape Representation in the Francophone Imaginary (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2014) examines theoretical, visual, and literary texts in order to challenge the dominant views of sexual violence.  She has authored over 30 publications that have appeared in books, edited volumes, and peer-reviewed journals. Her second academic book Looking for Other Worlds: Black Feminism, Literary Ethics, and Haitian Fiction is currently under contract with University of Virginia Press. Her book A Trumpet of Conscience for the 21st Century: King’s Call to Justice is forthcoming with Orbis Press in 2021.

Much of Dr. Jean-Charles’s activist work has been with A Long Walk Home, where she began as founding board member in 2003. A Long Walk Home, Inc., is a non-profit organization that uses art to educate, inspire, and mobilize young people to end violence against girls and women. Her involvement in ALWH ranged from performing in Story of a Rape Survivor, a multi-media arts performance about black women and sexual assault, conducting workshops for the Girl/Friends Leadership Institute in Chicago, to giving lectures at universities across the country on topics such as study abroad and sexual assault. Her work with the Boston area includes initiatives with Shatter the Silence a faith-based initiative to address sexual violence and AFAB the Haitian Women’s Association of Boston.

Dr. Jean-Charles is also a regular contributor to media outlets like The Boston Globe, WGBH, America Magazine, and Cognoscenti, where she has weighed in on topics including #metoo and issues affecting the Haitian diaspora.

Lunise Cerin 
Editor, Madan Sara

Lunise Cerin is a Haitian filmmaker with over seven years of experience creating both narrative and lifestyle content. She began her career as a content producer at the LA based web platform Black&Sexy TV, where she worked as a series, writer, producer and director and self-taught editor for 6 years. Most recently she has worked as the editor of Sirens film, producer of Le Mancelinier funded by the Pew Foundation and is the lead editor of the Madan Sarah film. Lunise Cerin is an MFA candidate at Columbia University's Screenwriting Directing MFA, where she was admitted with the Bridges Larson Foundation Fellowship.

SUPPORT

The Madan Sara screening and discussion is proudly brought to you by the Center for Experimental Ethnography (CEE), the Department of Africana Studies (DAS), the Center for Africana Studies, the Department of Anthropology, the Latin American and Latinx Studies (LALS), and the Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies (GSWS).
The Madan Sara project is raising funds to support their efforts to bring the film to communities in Haiti through free, public screenings. We invite you to make a contribution of any size to support this mission. To learn more about the film and join in the conversation online, visit MadanSaraFilm.com, use the hashtag #MadanSara across social media, and follow @madansarayiti on Twitter and @MadanSaraFilm on Instagram.