The Price Of Sugar

Bill Haney’s documentary about Haitians lured into a form of indentured servitude sugar plantations across the border in the Dominican Republic

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Charlottetown: Breaking the Silence PEI
Monday May 5, 2008
Screening begins 19h00
Venue: City Cinema is located steps from Charlottetown Harbour in the heart of old Charlottetown. The nearest ATM machines are located in the Royal Bank, two blocks north, and in the Delta Prince Edward, one block east. Within walking distance are a variety of restaurants and pubs, the Peake's Quay and Confederation Landing waterfront developments and historic Victoria Row.

90 minutes

“The Price of Sugar,” Bill Haney’s muckraking documentary about Haitians lured into a form of indentured servitude on sugar plantations across the border in the Dominican Republic, focuses on the Rev. Christopher Hartley, a courageous and stubborn Spanish priest who devoted 10 years to bettering their desperate plight. The movie visits the workers’ shantytowns, known as bateyes, which, according to the film, resembled forced labor camps patrolled by armed guards before Father Hartley’s reform movement. Through his organizing and relentless pressuring of the plantation owners in the face of death threats, some bateyes in his parish now have improved living and working conditions and have been visited by American doctors. “The Price of Sugar” is narrated in calm, gravelly tones by Paul Newman. Like most documentary polemics, it simplifies the issues it confronts and selects facts that bolster its black-and-white, heroes-and-villains view of raw economic power. — Stephen Holden, The New York Times

Acting Credits
Paul Newman-Narrator
Father Christopher Hartley-Himself

Production Credits
Director - Bill Haney
Screenplay - Bill Haney
Screenplay - Peter Rhodes
Executive Producer - Tim Disney

Composer - Claudio Ragazzi
Cinematographer - Jerry Risius
Cinematographer - Eric Cochran
Producer - Bill Haney
Producer - Eric Grunebaum
Associate Producer - Debra Longo

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