Jeremy Robins & Magali Damas | 72 min | 2008
Fri, 02/12/2010 – 7:30pm
DCTV, 87 Lafayette Street, NYC

In the wake of Haiti’s devastating earthquake, we will be screening The Other Side of the Water with a Q&A featuring Jeremy Robins and Magali Damas, followed by a special performance by DJARARA.

The Other Side of the Water follows a group of young immigrants who take an ancient music from the hills of Haiti and reinvent it on the streets of Brooklyn. The journey of this unlikely band, DJARARA, offers a unique insight into the Haitian-American experience — a rare glimpse into a world of music, spirituality, and cultural activism.

All proceeds will go directly to Doctors Without Borders and to the band’s families in Haiti.

Jeremy Robins (director, co-producer) is a media educator and filmmaker whose work includes The Cause of Pierre Toussaint, a documentary on a 17th Century Haitian former slave who is now being considered for sainthood by the Catholic church. He has worked for POV, as a field producer for MTV’s True Life, and as a DP on shows for PBS and the Hartley Film Foundation. He teaches production classes at DCTV and has led documentary projects with NYC public high school students since 1998. He has also written for The Independent Film & Video Monthly and the Brooklyn Rail.

Magali (Magi) Damas (co-producer) has worked the past fifteen years in video production, festival organization, and civic activism. She co-produced The Cause of Pierre Toussaint, and as an Associate Producer at West Indies Productions in Haiti from 1998 to 2002, has helped to produce and promote over forty music videos, commercials, and documentaries. She’s currently the video coordinator for HaitiXchange.com, and works in a variety of production roles for Metrovision Production Group, NYC. She helped organized Haiti’s second largest festival “Gelee,” in Les Cayes, as well as a Rara festival in Paillant. She works tirelessly to promote Haitian culture both here and in Haiti.

DJARARA is a traditional Haitian processional band keeping the ancient art of “rara” music alive in America. The band started in 1990 as a spontaneous explosion of cultural pride after the election of populist leader Jean Bertrand Aristide, and has since been at the heart of the Haitian community of New York. DJA-Rara performed on “Wyclef Jean Presents the Carnival”, and their 2007 song “Why” was called one of the top carnival songs of that year by Afropop Worldwide. Playing every Sunday night of the summer in Prospect Park, often leading processions of over 10,000 people, the band is one of the unique treasures – and best kept secrets – of the city.

Presented by DCTV and Shooting People