At this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Haiti’s presence has reached well beyond the spotlight of the red carpet, which featured Gessica Généus’s film Marie Madeleine. In the bustling business hubs, industry markets, and co-production spaces where international cinema is forged, Haitian professionals are actively advancing fresh cinematic projects. Key among them are Marina Mathieu and Stefan Supplice, members of Coalition M.É.D.I.A., an expanding collective dedicated to creating market access for French-speaking audiovisual professionals from Afro-descendant, racialized, and Indigenous communities.
Marina Mathieu, who has served as the collective’s Executive Director for nearly a year, balances community organizing and industrial strategy with her work as a filmmaker, having written and produced three award-winning short films covering institutional violence, health, and climate displacement. Working alongside her is Stefan Supplice, a Haitian-Canadian creative producer and filmmaker based in Ottawa. As the co-founder of NIYA Productions, Supplice is currently attending the Marché du Film and Cannes Docs to pitch his upcoming feature-length documentary, Le silence de Mostafa. Supported by Téléfilm Canada, the Canada Council for the Arts, and developed through the EURODOC program, the deeply personal project explores family legacy through a young girl discovering the cinema of her grandfather, the iconic Moroccan filmmaker Mustapha Derkaoui, in a bilateral co-production with Morocco.
This year, Coalition M.É.D.I.A. backed a delegation of four independent producers at Cannes, covering travel expenses, providing pre-market training, and offering on-site guidance while ensuring each filmmaker retains absolute ownership of their project. For both Mathieu and Supplice, establishing a base at Cannes is a crucial milestone for representation and structural growth. While this behind-the-scenes work at the world’s largest film market is less visible than the paparazzi flashes on the red carpet, it remains an indispensable platform for securing international funding partnerships and shaping the future of contemporary Haitian cinema.
