Masisi - A Dance Film

MASISI is a dance film about gay Haitian men who have fled violence and threats in Haiti to Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic.

 

The project explores their relationship to love and hate, to their dreams and to spirituality and their path to express their personal identity. The implementation takes place through dance, documentary material and electronic music based on the vodou culture in Haiti.

 

The film will be produced in 2022 and will premiere during the spring of 2023.

WHAT DO YOU SUPPORT?

The participants in this project are talented dancers, storytellers and creators, but they have very few resources. Therefore, 100% of the money donated through this fundraising will go to pay the participants for their contribution and work during this project. In that way the project will in itself make life easier for some people having difficult lives in the Dominican Republic.

 

All participants will be selected because of their talent, as in any other professional work.

 

ABOUT ME

I am a Norwegian actor, musician and filmmaker. This is going to be my second film.

Since 2018, I have interviewed and documented the lives of several Haitian gay men in Santo Domingo. Their stories are often about hiding from fear of violence and threats of murder in Haiti, or about how they were evicted from their homes because of their sexual orientation.

 

I want to do this project because I have experienced a group of people who, despite their difficult life situation and uncertain future as refugees, have an incredible strength that is expressed, for example, on the dance floor, or in the meeting between each other in the joy of being together.

The energy and joy of life that arises in this project is something that I miss in the Norwegian context, and which I want to create an opportunity to be able to experience through this film. I want to tell a story about being oneself, for real.

 

It is also a contribution to the important conversation going on in the LGBTQ community in Haiti, as well as in the world. While doing research for the project I saw a need for sharing ones life stories, and I realized that many of them had not yet been told.


My homepage: https://www.andreasstrandrenberg.com/ 


THE PLAN
We will work during August, September and October. We will perform at the Festival of Contemporary Dance in Santo Domingo (EDANCO) and in April 2023 we will have e finished edited film ready for premiere.