Arnold Antonin

A man of diverse careers, Arnold Antonin is known both inside and outside Haiti for his social, political and cultural commitment.

Born Celesti Corbanese in Port-au-Prince, Haiti in 1942, Arnold Antonin is a film director and a university professor who also organizes debates and heads a cultural center.

[2] A man of diverse careers, Arnold Antonin is known both at home and abroad for his social, political, and cultural commitment.

[3] In 1975 he directed the film Haiti, The way to Freedom (Ayiti, men chimin Libete) a documentary critical of the Jean-Claude Duvalier dictatorship which was shown around the world.

Also in 1986, Arnold Antonin constructed the Centre Pétion-Bolivar, a nonprofit educational foundation based in Pétionville, a suburb of Port-au-Prince.

The Centre Pétion Bolivar closed in March, 2020, after 34 years due to financial constraints which were worsened by the coronavirus pandemic.

1975: Directs Ayiti, men chimen libète, a film in which he tours the world as part of the mobilization against the Duvalier dictatorship.

2002: Honored at the Cannes Film Festival for his body of work and for his documentary Courage de femmes, as part of the Djibril Diop Mambety Prize.

2009: At  the Fespaco awards in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, Arnold Antonin presented his documentary Jacques Roumain: la Passion d'un Pays.

In 1976 he won a prize at the Francophone FiFEF Festival in New Orleans for Naive Art and Repression in Haiti In 1980, his movie "Un Tonton Macoute peut-il être un poète?"

[12] In 1982 Antonin received a special mention at the Mérida Cine Festival for "Un Tonton Macoute peut-il être un poète?".

It is called Matériel pour une préhistoire du cinéma haïtien (Material for a prehistory of Haitian cinema).

In 1983 he received another special mention for his role as a jury at the International Festival of the New Latin American Cinema of Havana for "Haiti, the path of freedom."

[14] He has been a member of several international juries for films in Havana, Caribbean Images, Namur, Ouagadougou Fespaco, Oaxaca México, Bogota, Sugar (Bolivia).

Filmmaker Arnold Antonin was honored as part of the Book Fortnight 2019 which ran from June 2 to 20, 2019.