Tito

Kervens ‘Tito’ Jimenez was arrested in December 2006 in relation to a crime that his friend had been suspected of committing. Detained initially for questioning, he was eventually transferred to the National Penitentiary in Port-au-Prince. At the time of recording the footage in the short documentary Tito, he had been left to rot there – without ever being charged or brought before a judge – for the majority of six years. In 2012 two American filmmakers, Taylor McIntosh and Corbin J. Stone, were trying to produce a longer-form documentary about Tito’s situation and provided him with a small camera to capture life inside the prison. Although he was subsequently released, Tito was murdered before that project could be completed but this particular element, a prelude to a tragedy, remains as a powerful portrait in his honour.

While the footage is all very much of the familiar verite, fly-on-the-wall variety, it ranges from the camera jostling around, seemingly hanging from Tito’s body to him holding it at arm’s length and composing more considered images. In one moment, he sits behind some railings and reaches his arm through to film himself from the other side: “Behind bars, that’s how life is,” he says, “You look out, outside, but you cannot go.” Another sequence includes a montage of various elements of life in the prison – shuffling along a concrete corridor to collect food, milling about in a cramped yard, using the rudimentary toilets – but is set to a song performed by Celiane Maurice which only serves to heighten the mournful plight of the incarcerated. Almost 80% of people in Haiti’s prison system are technically pre-trial and have never been charged.

The impact of this knowledge churns the stomach as Tito recounts his own story to the camera or portrays the uncomfortable and unsanitary conditions in which he and his fellow inmates have to live. In an audio recording at the end of the film, Tito explains how these images will help him, in a future he would tragically never know, to convey to his children what life in prison was like: “the camera is all we have.” One might wonder about the ethics of two American filmmakers posthumously editing and releasing Tito’s footage, but the film is made with the deepest regard and love for its protagonist and carries his personal wish to document his life so others might better understand.

Directors: Kervens Jimenez, Taylor McIntosh
Producers: Taylor McIntosh, Corbin J. Stone
Cinematography: Kervens Jimenez
Editing: Taylor McIntosh
Production company: 12thKnot INC. (USA)
Venue: International Film Festival Rotterdam (Ammodo Tiger Short Competition)
In English, Haitian Creole
14 minutes