1951 Port-au-Prince, Haiti
Moness Destina
1951
Port-au-Prince Haiti
Interviewed on January 27th, 2019
By Jodhel I. Destina
My first movie? Anyway, let me give you one. I really don’t remember. Let’s see, it was when I was a little kid. A French movie. Les Misérables. It was long time ago. I was around 15. I was in my country. In Haiti. At that time, my father sent me to Port-au-Prince for the carnival. It was at that period I saw it.
It was about a people that are living in some shanty town, but they are poor people. Anyways they’re in need of anything, food, clothes, everything, because they don’t have. And around them living some rich people. The guy who played the movie showed us how it was about a revolution, so those people that are living in this country, they are poor people, they don’t have anything to eat. Their life depends on the rich people, because they have everything. But them, some of them eat a piece a bread from the other people. You see those people went to the garbage and pick up food to eat from the other people. And then, one of them who went to school keep talking about those people, tell them they’re supposed to do something. Try to find something. And then they teach some of them how to work and they went to the farm and then work. And from there a guy show those poor people how to survive by themselves, without eating food in the garbage. And from then, there is a revolution against rich people. But at that time, it was no the system that we have now. At that time, we have a king in this country. And then there is an uprising against the king, and they try to destroy the kingdom and they put fire on that until they kill all people in the kingdom and even the king was dead.
When I went to the movie, I didn’t go by myself. It was in the capital, so a friend of my father went to the movie with me. The theater wasn’t too far where the guy was living. We went by walking. You can take a car, but we just walked to go because it wasn’t too far.
The theater was called “Olympia”.
There are no ushers. There are people that sell the tickets, but the theater we have at this period, it wasn’t similar to the ones we have here. We get the ticket at the door and then you just give the ticket and you enter.
I don’t remember if there is a concession stand. My favorite candy… I don’t think I have a favorite. Oh, at that time, when I was a little kid, it was… I don’t know the name here, in the United States, but they call it Tito. It is something long, tiny, but very sweet.
