Arnold Antonin - Biography

Biography

Born Celesti Corbanese in Port-au-Prince, Haiti in 1942, Arnold Antonin is a film director and a university professor who also organizes debates and heads a cultural center. He was, fom 2005 to 2009, the president of the Association of Haitian Movie Directors.

Man of diverse careers, Arnold Antonin is known both at home and abroad for his social, political, and cultural commitment. He was honored for his work with the Djibril Diop Mambety award at the International Film Festival in Cannes in 2002. He has received the Paul Robeson best film award three consecutive times at the African Diaspora FESPACO in Ouagadougou in 2007, 2009, and 2011. He has also received many awards at various festivals for his documentaries and fiction movies.

Antonin has been a judge at several international film festivals including Havana, Namur and FESPACO. He was honored for his work and for his documentary Women of Courage at the Cannes Festival in 2002.

In 1975 he directed the film Haiti, The way to Freedom (Ayiti, men chimin Libete) a documentary critical of the Jean-Claude Duvalier dictatorship which was shown around the world. Antonin spent several years in exile and returned to Haiti in 1986 after the fall of the dictatorship. He created the community center Petion Bolivar, a center that promotes culture and political debates. He organizes debates regularly under the name Thursday’s Public Forum (Forum Libre du Jeudi).

Antonin has produced and directed more than twenty documentaries and two films, Piwouli (Piwouli and the Zenglendo) and Does The President Have Aids (Le président a-t-il le Sida?) starring Jimmy Jean-Louis who plays The Haitian in the American television series Heroes.