PAPA MACHETE
Jason Fitzroy Jeffers & Keisha Witherspoon
Documentary Short/10 mins
Haiti | 2014
Haitian farmer, Alfred Avril, is one of the last remaining masters of tire machèt, the martial art created by enslaved Haitians to fight Napoleon’s armies. Teaching about the practical and spiritual value of the machete—both a weapon and a farmer’s key to survival—Avril provides a link between his country’s past and its present.
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About the Filmmaker
Jason Fitzroy Jeffers is a Miami-based writer and filmmaker from Barbados. As a journalist, Jason has written about South Florida arts and culture for publications such as The Miami Herald’s Street Weekly and Ocean Drive. As a filmmaker, he wrote and produced the award-winning short film “Papa Machete” (14), which screened at the Festival. Jason is also the founder of Third Horizon, a Miami-based collective of Caribbean filmmakers, musicians and artists. With the support of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Third Horizon will be staging its inaugural Caribbean film, art and music festival in Miami in Fall 2016.