What started out as an exercise in satire quickly turned serious as Raoul Peck worked on his latest film Moloch Tropical.
At first following the exploits of a Haitian president in danger of losing his grip on power, the film instead ended up as a multi-layered examination of political power structures. While he may initially have been inspired by the last heady days of the 19th-century Haitian king Henri Christoph, astute viewers will pick up references to several more recent very powerful men ranging from Richard Nixon to Saddam Hussein.
The film had its African debut at the Durban International Film Festival (Diff) this week and Peck was on hand to answer questions after the first screening and to take a master class at the Talent Campus.
In addition to winning awards at film festivals all over the world for Lumumba, Haitian Corner and L'homme Sur les Quais, Peck also won Best Film at the 2005 Diff for Sometimes In April.
Pretty good for someone who doesn't think of himself first and foremost as a film-maker.
"Film for me was always, and still is, an instrument to express myself as an engaged citizen, to bring my own little part in changing whatever we can change, whether collectively or individually," said Peck.
He sees film-making as a useful instrument.
"It's a counter-tool to the invasion of images and stories that we have every day, which basically doesn't mean anything anymore. If you want to say something you have to use those dominating instruments."
In the great scheme of film-making Peck sees himself as following on "militant cinema", which he believes could not compete any longer with the avalanche of entertainment and the advent of the Internet.
"So you have to find new ways to be part of what's going on," he explained.
Schooled in Haiti, then Zaire (what is now the DRC), France and Germany, Peck originally studied engineering and economics at the Berlin University. He worked as a journalist and photographer in the early '80s before earning a film degree from the Berlin Academy of Film and Television.
His 1993 film L'homme Sur les Quais was the first Haitian film to receive a theatrical release in the US and he somehow also found the time to serve as Haitian Minister of Culture in the early 1990s.
That political career didn't last very long, probably because he didn't approach it as a career choice, any more than being a film-maker is a definition he'd ascribe to.
He could, however, draw on the experience of politics when making Moloch Tropical, especially considering the weight of the power of making decisions.
"That's the daily life of politics, to makes choices, to compromise, to negotiate, to establish every day the power balance.
"If the only endgame is for you to stay in power, you are bound at some point to do the wrong thing. You might lose it, at the end you will lose it.
"But, there are people who have stayed in power for a long time. Look at Mugabe, someone who started in a great collective way and ended up being just a caricature of what he fought against.
"It's power itself, what power does to you if you don't watch out."
Peck believes that this freedom to not be bound by holding on to the power, either of his long gone political career, or as a film director, gives him a tremendous amount of freedom.
"I don't have to enter any compromise. My goal was not to become the ultimate film-maker. I never had to swallow anything I did not want to swallow."
While he may be cavalier about his film-making feats, others have not let his impact go unnoticed, with the Human Rights Watch in New York awarding him a Lifetime Achievement award as a socio-political commentator of note in 2001.
While the story idea for Moloch Tropical was his, he co-wrote the script with Haitian actor/director/ writer Jean-René Lemoine. Peck specifically wanted to work with someone with stage experience to give more weight to the words to emphasise the effect of rhetoric, so important to politicians.
When it comes to the Haitian film industry, Peck describes it as close to Nollywood in aesthetic and style, though not size. He has been one of the few success stories, but with no institutional support and a not yet economically viable film industry, matters remain quiet on that front.
He sees the South African film industry as quite incomparable in the world arena.
"You have right now in this country one of the most potentially exceptional territories to launch a new way to make cinema. Unfortunately, I get the impression that most people are just trying to do 'as good as', and to reproduce existing models whereas you have an incredible story. You could take it from any side, historically, individually, traumatically, in terms of the meaning for the rest of the world, ethnically... you have a concentration of the world experience.
"You have the money, it could be spent differently though."
In addition, he is impressed by the skill of South African actors and points out that speaking English means we'll conquer the world.
"You have a fairly known past for obvious reason, and there's what you are to Africa... to a continent that could change the rest of the world.
"So, what do you do with all of that? Where is the new South African voice?
"To tell a story is one thing, but to find also the appropriate voice, images and style that go with it... you have to allow different voices to get that access... you have to open the doors. You have to enable people to make mistakes, to fail.
"So that 10, 20 years from now we can say, there is a South African cinema. The Hollywood way is not the only way."
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