'Tropic Sun and His Eyes' Trailer Debuts at Tribeca
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- Elisee Junior St Preux directed "The Tropic Sun and His Eyes" as his debut feature, returning to Tribeca five years after his short film "Aurinko in Adagio" bowed at the same festival.
- The film was shot entirely in Haiti's Cap-Haïtien region and follows Ruben (Stevenson Jean) reconnecting with his estranged father, accompanied by a street kid played by Blangue Machiny.
- St Preux told Deadline the premiere is a "direct contribution to history" for Haitian culture, saying the story tackles mental health, vulnerability, toxic masculinity, and generational trauma.
- Two Lewis and Naturi Naughton-Lewis produced the film through Take Two Entertainment, stating they wanted to elevate a Haiti narrative "centered on humanity, beauty, resilience and healing rather than crisis."
- Calixto Chinchilla of NYLFF Cinematics and Warner Bros. Discovery OneFifty executive produces, calling the film "a quiet film that invites audiences to slow down, reflect, and examine their own relationships."
Why it matters: A Haitian director's debut feature premiering at Tribeca gives Haitian cinema a seat at a major U.S. festival where the country's stories are rarely told by Haitians themselves. St Preux explicitly frames the project as a corrective to media coverage that omits Haiti's "rich and beautiful" dimensions, making this both a personal milestone and a stated act of narrative reclamation for the culture.
