Haiti Filmmakers become Ambassadors for their Homeand

MAHWAH, N.J. — Four film students from Haiti's Cine Institute shared footage at Ramapo College in Mahwah, N.J., on Wednesday of Jacmel, their home city, captured during and after the January earthquake that devastated most of their country.

The sometimes shaky videos show stunned people milling in the street surrounded by fallen buildings. Motorbikes zoom, horns honking, through the streets. Three people help a gray-haired man crawl out from a collapsed building. Another man stands dead — pinned at the shoulder between two massive sections of a building.

The students' videos have aired all over the world on news programs, bringing to light the suffering in Jacmel, located two hours from the capital city of Port-au-Prince.

The world's attention was so focused on the hard-hit capital that little help was being given elsewhere, the students said. A school in Jacmel collapsed, burying dozens of students. The smell from their corpses became so bad that nearby survivors had to wear masks, said Jean Bernard Bayard , 28.

After their footage began airing, aid came to Jacmel as well. Toting cameras, the students were part of the relief.

"We were not only filming," Bayard said. "You hammer. You take the aid coming from the helicopter. You go to the boat and take the food and water,"

Jocelyne Firmin , 24, had just left the Cine Institute for the day and was walking in the street when the ground beneath her began to tremble.

It wasn't until she arrived at her former elementary school that she realized the full magnitude of the natural disaster.

"I felt numb," she said. "I couldn't feel any emotions."

She finally wept when she came to America with seven schoolmates to participate in the filming of the "We Are the World" music video — a bittersweet moment of joy amid tragedy.

"What keeps us from depression is when our minds are busy," said Ebby Angel Louis , another Cine student.

The group members have become unofficial ambassadors for their nation.

"We need sustainable support ... and job opportunities," Firmin said. "We want to be a nation other people can look to as part of the world."

Too often, she said, the world's focus on Haiti centers on AIDS, starvation and poverty.

"We want people to see there are positive things," Firmin said.

The film school, in its second year, has 50 students. Some dream of creating a "Jollywood" — Hollywood in Jacmel, she said.

They also hope that the earthquake is a catalyst to right the wrongs of their country — an absent government and extreme poverty.

"The fact that you have a nice car and I don't — that was gone because your car is destroyed," Firmin said of the equalizing affect of the earthquake.

"This is an opportunity to reshape and remodel the country," said Edouard Eloi , operation manager for the Berrie Center for the Performing and Visual Arts at the New Jersey college, who is acting as Ramapo's relief coordinator for Haiti.

The college is working on short- and long-term help it can provide to Haiti, including scholarships for Haitian students, a fund-raising concert and a $500 donation to the Cine Institute.

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