Bitter Cane

Filmed in secret during the Duvalier regime, this landmark documentary traces the forces of displacement, exploitation and foreign intervention that have shaped Haiti’s modern history. From rural farms to urban factories, the film captures how economic and political systems pushed peasants from land to city, laying the groundwork for today’s social unrest.

Bitter Cane screens Saturday, May 31 at the Koubek Center as part of the Third Horizon Film Festival. Presented in a newly restored version, the film is shown in Kreyòl, French and English with English subtitles. A Q&A with co-director Kim Ives will follow the screening.

The film was co-directed by the late Ben Dupuy, a Haitian political figure, journalist and former ambassador during the first Aristide administration, and Kim Ives, a filmmaker and journalist with Haïti Liberté. Ives’s recent work includes Another Vision: Inside Haiti’s Uprising (2022) and Haiti: Intervention versus Revolution (2024).

This screening is part of the retrospective series You Don’t Get Freedom, You Take Freedom: Caribbean Activist Cinema 1978–1985, which highlights restored films that center labor, resistance and sovereignty in the Caribbean context. Viewer discretion is advised due to graphic content.