Full Duck Productions

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Luc Marlin, Martinican Painter and Découpage Artist: This prolific artist, whose widely-exhibited work vibrates with bold colors and cryptic designs, describes the symbols in his art, his work as a teacher, his yearly visits to the Canary Islands, and the value of Caribbean connections in our interview in his Fort-de-France studio in November, 2001. Marlin, an avid student of Caribbean history and long-time teacher of decoupage and painting to students of all ages at SERMAC, incorporates in his paintings the histories of the slave trade and of his Caribbean predecessors, found objects from daily life, and symbols based on the elements of nature. For example, he uses crosses, in the form of crossroads, to represent the points of encounter between Caribbean peoples and Europeans, the locus for the practice of magical realism, and a place where one experiences hope but also death. He often works in triads, using three stones to represent man in the first stage of evolution, the sun, moon and earth to signify the foyer created by nature, and so forth. Marlin explains his work in such detail that the viewer moves ever deeper into the pieces as well as into Caribbean reality while experiencing the beauty of his art.

Video: Luc Marlin, Martinican Artist and Teacher
Details: French subtitled in English and French only, both on one DVD
Release date: February, 2011

Sample Clip: Go to Sample Clip Page

Victor Anicet

Victor Anicet, Martinican Ceramist, Artist and Historian: This internationally recognized ceramist, who studied in France, England and Germany as well as Martinique, gave this interview during a show of his work at the Université Antilles-Guyane in November, 2001. Anicet, a seeker of shadows, a restorer and rejuvenator of the past and a diligent scholar, creates works of art that bring objects and symbols from the culture of his Amerindian ancestors to life for the modern world. In the interview he speaks passionately about this quest, describes his extensive training in ceramics, and shows many of his sculptures and paintings. Among the topics he addresses are the Spanish conquest of the Caribbean islands, the vital heritage left behind by the Amerindians, the horrors of slavery, the multiple races that compose Caribbean society today and the richness of Caribbean culture. A recent inductee of the prestigious Académie Internationale de la Céramique and a celebrated citizen in his native village of Marigot, Anicet describes how his richly textured art includes both real and symbolic elements of African cloth, masks, slave irons, slave ships, East Indian trays, and Amerindian dogs.

Edwidge Danticat

Haitian author, most recently of Brother, I'm Dying and The Dew Breaker, winner of the 2005 Story Prize and up for the 2005 National Book Critics Circle Award; her other novels are Breath, Eyes, Memory; Krik? Krak!, a National Book Award finalist; and The Farming of Bones, an American Book Award winner.  In September of 2009, Ms. Danticat received one of the coveted MacArthur Fellow Genius grants, a $500,000 "no strings attached" stipend over the next five years, as incentive to continue her creative work.

Maryse Condé

This masterful author gave this interview where she spoke about her childhood, her passion for honesty, her compassion for women, her love of family and her respect for the craft of writing. She describes her experiences with racism in France and the U.S. and the controversy her books have caused.

Aimé Césaire

In this interview with the world-renowned French Caribbean poet and political activist from Martinique, Aimé Césaire speaks about his student days in Paris, his growth as a poet and politician, his passion for the Martinique landscape, his battle against assimilation of the French Caribbean people by France, and his seminal masterpiece, Notebook of a Return to the Native Land.

In the video, Césaire speaks about his passion for the island landscape, his student days in Paris, his friendship with other notable poets, and his creation of SERMAC, an art institute promoting Martinique's heritage. He describes his battle against the assimilation of his people by France and gives a dynamic reading from his seminal prose poem, Cahier d'un retour au pays natal.

Jocelyn Valverde

This French Caribbean poet, whose parents are from Guadeloupe, gave this interview where he focuses on the history of slavery in the French colonies, cultural alienation, French Caribbean culture, poetic sensitivity, the creative process and the importance of nature and spirituality.

Raphaël Confiant

The prolific French Caribbean writer from Martinique, who writes in both French and Creole, gave this keynote speech in which he describes his evolution as a writer, his passion for Creole culture and issues of French writers.

This video was videotaped and edited by Full Duck Productions and produced by Mosaic Media. The video presents a lecture given by Raphaël Confiant as the Keynote Speech at the 4th International Conference on Caribbean Literature, Trois-Ilets, Martinique, November 7, 2001. Confiant describes his evolution as a writer, his passion for Creole culture and the history of the literary movements of Négritude, Créolité and Antillanité. He also addresses the current preoccupations of contemporary French Caribbean writers, including his own.