The Spaces Between Grassroots Documentary ... - Ezra Winton

Haiti. In each of the three screenings over the last three years the director has come to
facilitate a discussion and often very emotional debate with an audience of 400 to 500
Haitians and Hatian-Canadians. For these screenings, as with other screenings, Cinema
Politica organizers have collaborated with groups that share interest in the issues
presented in the film. For the Haiti screenings, Cinema Politica worked with Haiti Action
Montreal to disseminate information to the Montreal Haitian community that each
screening was to occur, resulting in an overwhelming turnout of members of a scattered,
diaspora, to share thoughts and opinions on the culture and home they have left behind. I
now turn to the handful of interviews and insights that have percolated throughout my
experience of researching this thesis in the next subsection
Findings
Cinema Politica
The grassroots d/e spaces created within the Cinema Politica Network fit into Mouffe’s
notion of agonistic pluralism, where difference is debated constructively after screenings,
and where community is articulated free of pressure to agree, but is also where “the
political” is exercised by individuals who construct and express identity, either as
individuals or as collectives.
An example of such a space for pluralism, where Cinema Politica has engendered
cultural participation and contributed to democratic processes, is illustrated by screening
held at Concordia in 2006. The event was a special premiere screening of Kevin Pina’s
Haiti: Harvest of Hope (2006) with the director present for an introduction to the film
and to participate in a discussion with the audience afterward. Pina was the last Western
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