Professor Aims To Shape Haitian Narrative Through His Films
The words shook Yanatha Desouvre.
“Haitian, Haitian go back to your nation,” Desouvre recalls being told by his elementary school classmates when he was five years old.
That experience and others like it inspired him to co-write The Sweetest Girl, a short film he hopes will reshape how the Haitian community is viewed.
The 23-minute movie is set in Haiti and tells the story of a married couple struggling to rekindle their love after being together for more than 25 years. It was adapted from a chapter in Desouvre’s 2018 novel Revelations: Roads to Redemption called The Sweetest Girl.
He teamed with director Samuel Ladouceur and co-screenwriter Harry Jeudy on the project.
“This was all about inspiring this generation and the next to think better of themselves,” Desouvre said. “They can do anything.”
The film has been well received. It won Best Short Film at the Urban Film Festival in September of 2021, is hoping to be featured on KweliTV (a Black-owned streaming service) and is competing to air on the local PBS station—WPBT—in September.
It has also won a bevy of other awards including Best Picture at the South Florida International Film Festival in the Black or African Category, Best Cinematography and Best Young Actor at the New Jersey Film Awards and Best Original Story at the New York International Film Awards.
Filming took place in Miami in August of 2020 and lasted a week. A trio of Miami Dade College talent assisted with the project: Miami Fashion Institute professor Prisca Milliance served as costume designer, James Pierre—who has been an anchor and producer at MDC-TV for eight years—had one of the main acting roles and MDC alum David Gregorio was in charge of the film’s sound.
“It was just a bunch of us going to different locations, collaborating and working together to make it happen,” said Milliance, who bought most of the costumes used in the movie from Goodwill. “I think they did an excellent job.”
Desouvre displayed a flair for writing at an early age. He wrote his first poem, Fruity Loops, when he was seven. In it, he compared his classmates to the sugary and multicolored cereal.
Since then he has written 10 books. Most of them follow the theme of living life with purpose.
When he’s not writing or creating films, Desouvre is a full-time entrepreneurship and business professor at Wolfson Campus. He has worked at MDC since 2017.
“It is an honor to plant seeds in the non-traditional and traditional students,” Desouvre said. “I want them to understand that growth is not going to be easy but it is a life of fulfillment, significance and impact that we hope to do.”
Desouvre, who has a bachelor’s degree from Drexel University in Philadelphia and a master’s degree from Lynn University, is currently the producer of Flatbush, a film that tells the story of a Haitian-American teenager growing up in New York in the 1990s during the early years of the AIDS epidemic. At that time, the Haitian community was not allowed to donate blood.
He also wants to write a prequel to The Sweetest Girl.
“We need more Black actors, directors and producers that can tell stories about Black communities,” Pierre said. “If your story is being told by someone that doesn’t truly understand your culture, then it will be hard to explain some of the social contracts and key elements about your story.”
