Mario Delatour

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The film business has been a big part of Mario Delatour’s life. Born in Caracas Venezuela to Haitian parents on September 26th 1955, Delatour’s career has taken him to nearly 30 countries. A natural-born storyteller, he uses his medium to tell his stories. A graduate of UCLA (University of California in Los Angeles) and Columbia School of Motion Pictures and Television in Los Angeles, Delatour worked in the Hollywood film industry for two years prior to returning to his native land of Haiti in 1981.

 

In 2002, Delatour and Danish producer Mogens Rasmussen explored post-Apartheid South Africa with two documentary films: The politics of Memory & The limits of Patience. In 2003, Delatour researched and produced Roussan Camille… Quarante ans après (Roussan Camille…Forty Years later), a documentary about the Jacmel-born poet, diplomat, and journalist Roussan Camille. In 2004, he founded  Amistad Films his own production company. One of his most acclaimed documentaries is Un Certain Bord de Mer, (An unwelcome lot) a work that chronicled Arab emigration to Haiti in the latter part of the 19th century.

 

In the aftermath of Haiti’s devastating earthquake on January12th 2010, Delatour wrote and directed 35 long seconds: Haiti’s deadly earthquake, a 20-minute film which laid bare the catastrophic destruction of the nation’s capital Port-au-Prince. The Smithsonian in Washington D.C ran the film as part of an exhibit on Haiti’s dreadful earthquake. Delatour is based in Port Au Prince, Haiti.