huguesgentillon-1.jpg (978×100) 

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/Hugues_Gentillon.jpg 

FILMMAKER

Facebook | IMDb | Twitter | Contact

https://yugy.com/huguesgentillon-2.png

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://yugy.com/aurelia-khazan-lovemehaiti.jpg

Hugues Gentillon is the critically-acclaimed transmedia and social-impact director who has stewarded the iconic film entitled Love Me Haiti, which won Unesco's Dikalo Peace Prize  for best interpretation and characterization, as well as for crafting the amazingly outstanding performance of actress Aurelia Khazan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/Hugues_Gentillon.jpg

Facebook | IMDb | Twitter

Hugues Gentillon was born, raised, and completed high school in Haiti. He was further educated in the USA and in Europe. He is a physician-scientist and an entrepreneurial filmmaker.

https://yugy.com/hugues-gentillon-mdc.png

 So far as his career in cinema is concerned, Gentillon is a relative latecomer to filmmaking. His primary higher education is in medical sciences. Gentillon became known for his fast-paced blockbuster MFA thesis film Love Me Haiti, as well as his distinctive style of directing - So exceptional, unique and distinctive is Gentillon's style and techniques that he is numerously nominated and invited to film events and his directorial calling-card Love Me Haiti is repeatedly featured in the world's press. In fact, so remarkable and original, Gentillon rapidly won international acclaim following his collection of Haiti's Academy Award for best fictional film.

 Gentillon's MFA thesis, Love Me Haiti, is a self-consciousness-perspectival, reflective, and interpersonal film. Although the story is set in Haiti, it mirrors a situation that continues to take place in so many countries, especially in the developing world... Gentillon's masterpiece takes on an emotional and challenging topic - Love and Hate - the film fosters an informed and rational dialogue on the issue. Seven years in the making, his adapted screenplay was conceived at the New York Film Academy and assembled at the Academy of Art University, then traveled the festival circuit, and garnered many prestigious screenings and accolades worldwide. Love Me Haiti officially premiered at the 2014 Marché du Film, organized by the Festival de Cannes, the most prestigious and publicized film festival in the world. Gentillon's distinctive creation has been subsequently screened at numerous international film festivals.

https://yugy.com/love-me-haiti-best-short-film.png

 In 1999, Gentillon earned Associate in Art degree in medical sciences, with honors and distinction, from Miami Dade College, and he was awarded a full scholarship to attend the University of Florida, known as the "Harvard of the South". In Miami, his school adviser and colleagues discouraged him to go there because of xenophobia and the Gainesville Ripper serial killings of students in the early 1990s. Despite the warnings, Gentillon accepted the scholarship and 3 years later completed a Bachelor of Science degree in microbiology and cell science from the University of Florida. While studying there, he worked as an assistant in various private and US government sponsored research projects at the University of Florida. The acquired experience later helped him get a job at a Coca Cola laboratory. Then he studied podiatric medicine for 2 years at Barry University. He abandoned the DPM degree and then switched to allopathic medicine in Europe, where he completed his MD degree.

 In the medical field, Gentillon did research in computational image analysis and radiological science. He collaborated with the Medical University of Lodz radiology department and the Technical University of Lodz radio-electronics department. His PhD project aims at developing computer-aided diagnostic methods to assist radiologist in making more objective interpretation of ultrasound and magnetic resonance pictures of fetal brain. It was during his medical studies in Europe that he became attracted to neuroradiology.

 While studying medicine, Gentillon wrote lyrics and collaborated with musicians in the USA and UK. Nevertheless, he was more attracted to filmmaking. As a result, he parallelly studied acting at the New York Film Academy and motion pictures and television at the Academy of Art University (AAU). He managed to complete his MD degree in 2011 and his MFA in 2013. Although his MFA thesis titled "Love Me Haiti" focuses on directing, he was trained equally in screenwriting, directing and producing. The AAU program that he completed prepares students seeking a professional career in the film and television industries as a writer, producer, or director.

Hugues Gentillon is inspired by other doctor-artist hybrids in the history of medicine. During his education, Gentillon did not let his advisers make him settle for one or the other - when he can do both.

Love Me Haiti is Gentillon's Master of Fine Art thesis at the Academy of Art University (AAU), located in San Francisco, California, USA. In January 2015, after Gentillon won the Interstudent contest, some Polish news media, lost-in-translation, mistakenly reported that he produced Love Me Haiti while he was a graduate student at the Strzemiński Academy of Art Łódź (ASP Łódź). The truth is Gentillon hired actors and crew members and rented filmmaking equipment from ASP Łódź and from the Leon Schiller National Higher School of Film, Television and Theatre in Łódź (PWSFTviT). He was further assisted by staff of the Promotion Office at the Medical University of Łódź, the Film Commission of Łódź, the Mayor Office of Łódź, to recruit extras and to find locations to produce other AAU films, among which are The Door (2013), Agro Production (2012), and Lakay (2011).

https://yugy.com/lovemehaiti-poster-1.jpg

Nonetheless, Gentillon's filmmaking education and most of the financial support to produce Love Me Haiti came from the San Francisco's Academy of Art University and the U.S. Department of Education. The misinformation arises from the fact that Gentillon attended AAU while studying medicine at the Medical University of Łódź in Poland, and both AAU and ASP, are locally known as Academy of Art. Adding up to the confusion, Love Me Haiti development and post-production were done while Gentillon was in the city of Łódź, and its pre-production and production took place in Haiti. During the winter 2012, Gentillon traveled to Paris, New York, Atlanta, Miami, and Port-au-Prince to audition actors. Early 2013, he assembled an international team of filmmakers and recorded the film in Port-au-Prince. There Gentillon recruited his cousin Hugue-Robert Marsan as executive producer. Marsan and his multi-media company GraphCity supported Gentillon by providing him additional filmmaking equipment. Leson Messilie started working on set construction before the team arrived in Haiti. So was Mario Calixte with art direction. He made the paintings for Love Me Haiti set decoration and for the film poster art.

Gentillon's MFA thesis film Love Me Haiti was indeed done extramurally but under the sole academic aegis of the Academy of Art University, located in California and which also awarded his MFA in motion pictures and television.

To piece this enigmatic film production puzzle together, the ideas which gave birth to Love Me Haiti were locked in Gentillon's mind until summer 2007. He conceived the film at the New York Film Academy (NYFA), where he studies acting, then assembled it at AAU, and released it seven years later. At NYFA, he also wrote lyrics for film music. Gentillon recruited and collaborated with music composer Trystan Matthews, musicians from Demo My Song studio (USA), and music production team from BonaFidaStudio (UK) to create an album entitled A PLACE TO COEXIST release under his artist name YUGY. The third track in this album is a song called Love Me Haiti. Later on, under the umbrella of self-founded company Yugy Pictures Entertainment, Gentillon obtained exclusive story-life rights from Dr. Alix Charles and others to produce Love Me Haiti. Gentillon then proposed the project to AAU academic film committee, headed by Diane Baker and composed of James Egan, Eduardo Rufeisen and other Hollywood film industry professionals. Love Me Haiti was accepted as Gentillon's MFA thesis film. Ex-Paramount producer/writer Andy Ruben was assigned as his main coach and famous American TV director Harry Winer as the collateral supervisor. As a result, Gentillon recruited a team of screenwriters and interviewed Dr. Alix Charles again. The story that he originally adapted was subsequently re-written a number of times, as if it was a film development in the real Hollywood collaborative world. Besides Gentillon, Alexander Stuart and Joyce Mccauley-Benner did most of the rewrites. Gentillon took all the supplemental ideas and diluted them into a final shooting script.

https://yugy.com/huguesgentillon.yugy.jpg

Facebook | IMDb | Twitter | Contact