October 1, 2002
Contact: George Yatchisin
(805) 893-3494
e-mail: yatchisin-g@ sa.ucsb.edu
Filmmaker Raoul Peck, a UCSB Regents’ Lecturer
in Film Studies and Sociology, presents his film
Profit and Nothing But! at UCSB Campbell Hall
Summary Facts:
- Screening of Profit and Nothing But! with filmmaker Raoul Peck
- Peck is the director of the award-winning film Lumumba
- He will discuss “The Challenge of Political Cinema”
- Wednesday, October 30
- 7:30 pm / UCSB Campbell Hall
- Free event
- Information: UCSB Arts & Lectures at 893-3535
Director Raoul Peck, a UCSB Regents’ Lecturer in the Departments of Film Studies and Sociology, will present his film Profit and Nothing But! on Wednesday, October 30 at 7:30 pm in UCSB Campbell Hall and deliver the lecture “The Challenge of Political Cinema.” This is a free event.
Born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, raised and educated in Zaire (the Democratic Republic of Congo), New York, France and Germany, Raoul Peck is an internationally acclaimed filmmaker. His films have screened at dozens of prominent film festivals worldwide, and have earned him numerous prizes and awards, including the distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award from the Human Rights Watch Film Festival. Peck is probably best known for his award-winning film Lumumba (2000), which received its Santa Barbara premiere in the UCSB Arts & Lectures Fall 2001Film Series. Los Angeles Times critic Kenneth Turan extolled this biopic about African freedom fighter Patrice Emery Lumumba, first head of the independent state of the Congo, as “complex, powerful, intensely dramatic.”
In 1996 Peck returned to Haiti as Minister of Culture in the government of Prime Minister Rosny Smarth after the restoration of democratic rule. Following political confusion and an 18-month struggle, Peck, along with Prime Minister Smarth and several other Ministers, resigned their posts. Peck left behind a number of important development projects, most importantly the groundwork for the first National Cultural Plan Directive of the Republic of Haiti.
Profit and Nothing But! (2001, 52 minutes) explore the effects of globalization on Peck’s homeland. The film examines the ways in which so-called free market capitalism has rendered Haiti anything but free, presenting the views of economists and Peck himself. This economic Greek chorus, of sorts suggests that capitalism serves only the richest citizens of the richest nations. Meanwhile in countries like Haiti, markets have been drastically deregulated to encourage exports of their most valuable resources, while importing the worst of world consumer culture. The world economy is now out of control, the film argues, and our society encourages irresponsibility and a forgetfulness that Peck likens to a form of societal Alzheimer’s disease. Peck even go so far as to suggest the futility of making films as a way to fight this new world order. TV Guide Online claims, “Impassioned and deeply troubling, Peck’s film is not entirely without hope, and would make a powerful double bill with Life and Debt [screened by UCSB Arts & Lectures in February of 2002], Stephanie Black’s 2001 film about globalization’s disastrous impact on Jamaica’s economy.”
This event is presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures. Raoul Peck’s residency at UCSB is made possible by the Regents’ Lectureship program of the University of California. Instituted in 1962 to encourage rare and invaluable interaction between gifted non-academics and the university community, the program has continued to provide campus residencies in sponsoring departments for people with distinguished achievement in the arts, sciences, humanities, business, politics and international affairs.
Peck is the second UCSB Regents’ Lecturer for 2002-2003. In the spring of 2003 two Regents’ Lecturers will visit UCSB: science writer Laurie Garrett will be hosted by the Writing Program and journalist Gustav Niebuhr will be hosted by the Department of Religious Studies.
For more information,
call UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535.
Editor: For photos, please call
George Yatchisin at (805) 893-3494.