MFW11 BEST FICTION SHORT
BLUE HEART (Coeur Bleu)
[d] Samuel Suffren
Haiti, France / 2025 / Fiction / 15:19
Marianne and Pétion, living in Haiti, await a call from their son who has left in pursuit of the American dream.
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
In 1981, my father and 22 other Haitians aboard a makeshift boat risked their lives in search of the American dream. But after about twenty days, their vessel was sent back to Haiti. The crossing had failed, he told me. My childhood was shaped by this American dream of my father. He firmly believed that one day, his feet would touch the soil of Miami, his eyes would see the skyscrapers of New York. Despite this obsession, he died without ever having had the chance to see that country. This fantasy of the American dream that echoed in my father’s dream began to intrigue and question me. In 2021, following his death, I decided to go to Port-de-Paix, in northern Haiti, the very place where my father had attempted his journey more than 40 years ago. What I saw there deeply moved me. The boats have become much larger than before, now carrying between 400 and 500 people, all on their way to Miami. A woman I met the night before her departure told me, “I would rather die at sea than die here, in misery.”
I have so many questions, so many things that eat away at me. What feeling do you have when you embark, knowing that your life hangs by a thread? What can you hope for in a country where you project yourself into the unknown, without knowing the language, the culture, or even the social codes? Does this American dream, this promise of a better life, truly exist? So many questions to which I may never have an answer. I left Port-de-Paix, but the faces, the stories still haunt me. These men, these women, although fewer than the men, who leave, leaving their families behind. So, I decided to take on this subject, but from the perspective of those who stay in the country, those who don’t leave. Women waiting for news of their husbands, men, far fewer, hoping to hear from their wives who left by sea. Parents who have invested all their savings in the journey of their children. But how does one live in uncertainty, in the hope of one day, or perhaps never, seeing the one who left?
The migration of Haitians abroad, particularly to the United States, is not a recent phenomenon. Some context might help explain it. Between 1915 and 1934, the country underwent an occupation by the American military, and its resources were completely plundered. Later, Haiti went through a period of dictatorship and economic decline with the arrival of the Duvaliers in power, from 1957 to 1986. The country saw its first waves of migration to the United States in the 1960s. Since then, the economic and political situation in the country has never improved. Natural disasters, the systematic mismanagement of public resources by governments, gangs now occupying more than 80% of the capital’s territories, the complicity of the international community in the country’s instability… all of this has plunged Haiti into oblivion. And in the face of this chaos, Haitians are trying by all means to flee the country.
Creating a trilogy has always seemed like an interesting artistic approach to me because it allowed me to create three films on the same subject while maintaining a coherent universe across the entire work. Haitians don’t leave the country just by boat, but in this trilogy, I wanted to focus on the crossing, which I saw as perilous, especially because my father had also made that journey. In Port-de-Paix, I was deeply moved to see so many women taking this risk. So, I decided to create a work with three different perspectives, particularly focusing on those who stay behind. The first film, Agwe, gives voice to the woman living with her child while the man has left. In the second, Des rêves en bateaux papiers (Dreams like Paper Boats), it’s the woman who leaves the country, and the husband must now care for the child and wait. Although rare, this case does exist. I also wanted to address the figure of the father in this film, the responsible father who fulfills his role with ease. The third film, Coeur bleu (Blue Heart), closes the trilogy. It tells the story of an elderly couple who wait in silence for their son who has gone to the United States. Although this film is not autobiographical, it is largely inspired by the reality of my parents, my father’s story, and my mother’s epileptic illness.
Today, Haiti does not have functioning movie theaters. There is no government support for the arts in general. The only film school, which existed for about ten years, has closed its doors. How does one become a filmmaker in such a context? How do you make films? In 2019, along with several photographer and videographer friends, I decided to create a collective. We first organized a cine-club to develop our cinematic culture, and this project became a film festival in Port-au-Prince, which has now been going on for seven years. I learned to make films on the ground, camera in hand, with my artist friends. When you come from there, you don’t have the luxury of making a film “just to make a film.” The act itself becomes a militant act.