Jean Jean, a graduate of the San Antonio de los Baños International Film and Television School (EICTV), is one of the most active and relevant voices in Caribbean cinema today. He was born in Haiti and from the age of 3 has lived in the Dominican Republic, where he attended several art schools to become one of the recurrent cinema figures in that country.
In 2007 he began his studies at EICTV, a veritable milestone since no Haitian student had enrolled in that school for 15 years. His stay there marked his existence: "My mission is nothing more than to spread the word about how that experience changed my life forever and helped me not only to discover who I was, but that I was not alone”.
The memories of his life in that filmmaking temple, from 2007 to 2010, are those of someone who made the most of every minute. "The experience is predominantly practical, where the day, and part of the night, are spent in front of a movie screen, in a classroom enjoying the most stimulating lectures, exchanging with friends on a basketball court, the pool; but, above all, creating, writing, filming stories," he recalls. "It is something that has to be lived before it can be told, because it is simply a transforming and edifying experience".
His career has developed in two directions, acting and directing; successes in which he has gathered the fruit of all his training, including his time at the Carlos Mercado International School of Performing Arts, the Santo Domingo National School of Dramatic Arts, the theater in that country and, of course, EICTV.
For his first leading role, in Carpinteros (José María Cabral, 2017) he won the Coral Award for Best Male Performance at the International Festival of the New Latin American Cinema in Havana, the Ibero-American Actor Award at the Guadalajara International Film Festival in 2017, among others. He also made his debut as a director with the documentary Si Dios quiere, Yuli, which won several awards at international festivals.
Today, as the official representative of EICTV in Haiti, he insists "that the real importance of studying in that school lies in the fact that, in addition to learning about cinema, "you become part of a large family spread across the world, which serves as a great network to develop the incipient cinematography of Latin America and the Caribbean.
To him, this fact and the eminently practical nature of the training he received are two of the great differences between the School and any other film academy in the world.
To the young people of the Caribbean who, as part of the Programme, apply for courses there, he leaves a clear message as to why this is one of the best film academies they could choose: "The school's motto is ‘learning cinema by doing cinema’, which gives it that eminently practical characteristic. The school sent me out on the street ready to form part of any film crew in the outside world.”
He was recently selected for the Regard sur Montréal residency awarded by the Council for the Arts in Montreal, Canada. The grant enabled him to produce the short documentary film Printemps Now!, also created as a tribute to Tanya Vallete, who was not only the Director of the School between 2007 and 2011, but his mentor and friend.
EICTV is one of the institutions which are part of the of Transcultura: Integrating Cuba, the Caribbean and the European Union through Culture and Creativity. During the pandemic caused by COVID-19, the school has taken advantage of its technological capabilities and the expertise of its teachers to continue training filmmakers from all over the world through virtual courses.
Implemented by the UNESCO Regional Office for Culture in Latin America and the Caribbean and funded by the European Union, Transcultura aims, among other purposes, to develop skills and open up a world of opportunities for Caribbean youth.
