Hugues Gentillon

Background

Hugues Gentillon was born on December 17, 1974, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, to Haitian parents. Port-au-Prince is the capital and largest city of an island nation that declared independence in 1804, and it was there that he grew up.

His mother was born on the northwest peninsula of Haiti, and his father came from the southwest peninsula, so his family connected two distinct regions of the country. From 1985 he began spending summer vacations in Florida, where he visited relatives and studied English.

These summer visits to the United States came before his later higher education in the United States and Europe.

Education

Gentillon attended the Petit Séminaire Collège Saint-Martial in Port-au-Prince from 1980 to 1991. The all-boys Catholic school was founded in 1865 and has been entrusted to the Congregation of the Holy Spirit since 1871, combining religious and academic formation for its students. His studies there are recorded as strongest in history, arts and humanities, languages, theology, mathematics, and natural sciences such as astrophysics.

In 1991 his parents transferred him to Roger-Anglade Catholic School, where he completed the Baccalauréat 1 and 2 with a focus on mathematics and science. The baccalauréat is the French-style secondary-school diploma that concludes secondary education in Haiti.

He continued his education in the United States and in Europe, and his primary higher education is in the medical sciences. In the United States he completed a Master of Fine Arts at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. The school began in 1929 as the Academy of Advertising Art, founded by Richard S. Stephens, a painter who had been creative director of Sunset Magazine. It operates as a private, for-profit art and design school and adopted its current name in 2004. The film program prepared him in screenwriting, directing, and producing, although his thesis focused on directing.

In Europe, he conceived and wrote the screenplay for The Pearl of Wisdom in Łódź, Poland, an industrial city in central Poland with a strong film tradition.

Career

His career in cinema began with Love Me Haiti, his Master of Fine Arts thesis. Pre-production and production took place in Haiti, while development and post-production were carried out in Łódź, Poland. Gentillon recruited his cousin Hugue-Robert Marsan as executive producer and assembled a team of screenwriters for the 14-minute fictional short film.

The film premiered in 2014 at the Marché du Film, the market organized by the Festival de Cannes, which was founded in 1946. It was also screened at the Zanzibar International Film Festival, at the Boston Haiti Movie Awards event, and at the Bahamas International Film Festival. Its success in those events brought it considerable press attention, especially in Cannes and Zanzibar.

At the Zanzibar festival in 2014, festival director Martin Mhando had arranged a press interview with Gentillon, South African actress Terry Pheto, and Kenyan Oscar winner Lupita Nyong'o about the shared themes of Love Me Haiti, Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, and 12 Years a Slave. Nyong'o did not attend because of a bomb attack in Zanzibar the week before the interview, so only Gentillon and Pheto were interviewed, and the festival program was partly disrupted.

In 2015 Gentillon attended the Festival de Cannes to promote and pre-market his swashbuckler film The Pearl of Wisdom. He publicly announced the project in April 2015. Sources date the start of his work period in film to 2011.

He is the founder of Yugy Pictures Entertainment, a film production company based in the United States. More recently he announced plans to develop Love Me Haiti into a full-length feature film.

Achievements

• Love Me Haiti won the 2014 MPAH award for Best Short Film, and the press described the film as winning the 2014 Haitian Oscar.

• Gentillon selected and directed French actress Aurelia Khazan for the role of Jeudi Forstner; her performance in the film received the Best Interpretation Award and the UNESCO Prize for Peace.

• Love Me Haiti premiered at the 2014 Marché du Film, the market organized by the Festival de Cannes, one of the most prominent film festivals in the world.

• His Master of Fine Arts thesis film received distribution deals immediately after his graduation.

Works

• film

  • The Pearl of Wisdom

    (A fictional swashbuckler film that Gentillon conceived an...)

    2015

• short film

  • Love Me Haiti

    (A fictional short film, approximately 14 minutes long, th...)

    2014

Religion

Gentillon is documented as a Catholic. His schooling took place in Catholic institutions in Port-au-Prince, including the Petit Séminaire Collège Saint-Martial and Roger-Anglade Catholic School.

Roman Catholicism is the largest Christian communion, tracing its origins to the early Church and recognizing the authority of the Pope, with sacraments and a sacramental, community-centered worship at its core. In Haiti, the Church's role in education was formalized by the 1860 concordat between the Holy See and Haiti, which made possible the reopening of Catholic schools such as Saint-Martial under the religious orders that ran them.

Views

Gentillon's films return to themes of love, hate, resilience, and justice. In his own description of Love Me Haiti, the film treats love and hate as an emotional and challenging subject intended to foster an informed and rational dialogue. The Pearl of Wisdom centers on a female protagonist, reflecting a recurring interest in female-focused storytelling in his work.

Connections

Gentillon's cousin, Hugue-Robert Marsan, served as executive producer of Love Me Haiti, the thesis film that launched his filmmaking career.

Cousin:

Hugue-Robert Marsan

Served as executive producer of Love Me Haiti after Gentillon recruited him for the production.

References

• Wikipedia Encyclopedia article covering his birth in Port-au-Prince, his work as a film director and producer, his awards, and his founding of Yugy Pictures Entertainment.
• Wikidata Structured reference record listing his birth date and place, Haitian citizenship, occupations, and education at Academy of Art University.
• IMDb Film database entry with his biography, outlining his birth and schooling in Haiti, his further education in the United States and Europe, and his directing and producing credits on Love Me Haiti.
• SPLA Film profile presenting his official biography and his roles as director, producer, and researcher, with coverage of the Love Me Haiti festival screenings.