Here is a selection of Haitian films that serve as an introduction to the current wave. Creole and French with English Subtitles

• Barikad (Barricade) -- Directed by Richard Sénécal. A dreamy young man falls in love with his family's housekeeper, to the consternation of his parents, who want to keep class lines intact.

• Haitian Corner -- Directed by Raoul Peck. A poet flees Duvalierist Haiti for New York and meets a former soldier who tortured him back home.

• Pour L'amour de Suzie -- Directed by Raynald Delerme. A player and a single mother try to forget their past and rebuild their lives together. French with English Subtitles

• Lumumba -- Directed by Raoul Peck. This film chronicles Patrice Lumumba's rise to power in the Congo in 1960. Creole/French

• Kouché pa Bay (Laziness Begets Nothing) -- Directed by Willy Exume. Two unemployed Haitian immigrants in New York come up with a scheme to pluck them out their misery: shepherding their own church.

• Cicatrices (Scars) -- Directed by Jean-Gardy Bien-Aimé. A wealthy widow finds love in a much-younger man, and becomes alienated from her son, who still treasures his father's memory.

• Shango -- Directed by Moise Kharmeliaud and Wheeler Mackens. When a reporter's wife is murdered, he sets out to find her killers and unravels a web of treachery, police and media corruption and narcotics trading.

• Piwouli et le Zenglendo [Piwouli and the Thug] -- Directed by Arnold Antonin. A bored housewife, trapped in a loveless marriage, becomes enamored of a thief who robs her at gunpoint.

• Les Gens de Bien (People of Means) -- Directed by Raynald Delerme. A thinly disguised satire of the last days of the Duvalier dynasty.

• Caroline -- Directed by Louis Barth. A willful country girl schemes to break free from her tyrannical father to be with her true love.

KATHELINE ST. FORT

Reprinted from The Miami Herald of June 28, 2003.