Life Outside of Pearl, an official selection of the 2009 Pan African Film Festival, is scheduled to be released on DVD on Haitian Flag Day, May 18. The film, which was shot entirely in New Jersey, tells the story of a lower middle-class Haitian-American family struggling to adapt to life in the United States while holding on to their ethnic identity and culture. The film was directed by Johnny Desarmes, a Haiti-born director based in Los Angeles, and stars Haitian actor Jimmy Jean-Louis (of the NBC series Heroes) and music icon/activist Carole Demesmin. The 103-minute film is in English with Creole subtitles.
Desarmes, 34, was born and raised in Haiti. He remembers the move to the United States as a shock. The language, the culture, the people, even the weather, were vastly different from home in Haiti. Still, he managed to adapt and assimilate, learning English in six months, in addition to his fluency in Creole, French (the official language of Haiti) and Spanish. These experiences find their way into Life Outside of Pearl, which Desarmes wrote as well as directed. The film made him the first Haitian filmmaker to tackle a full-length film of this magnitude with an all-Haitian cast, including headliners Demesmin and Jean-Louis. His other credits include the short Trance and writing credits for the independent film, Haitian Nights. He is working on a new film to be titled Baton.
Desarmes cannot separate his efforts to make his first feature film from his sense of pride in and deep concern for his home island. “I feel Haitians have a big history to live up to,” he says, “but right now, my people are fighting for food.” Desarmes’s production company, Telescopic Films, has planned the DVD release of the film for this coming Monday to coincide with the launch of the philanthropic campaign, “500,000 United We Stand,” whose goal is to raise $500,000 for Haiti. Proceeds from the sale of the DVD will be donated to 10 states in Haiti to help build roads, repair schools and hospitals as well as assist in providing clean drinking water since natural disasters have left Haiti financially and economically crippled. The DVD will be available online at MySpace.com/500000UNITEDWESTAND and www.UnitedWayStore.com.
