Socially conscious actor Jimmy Jean-Louis will be Guest of Honor of the 24th Annual African Diaspora International Film Festival.
Truly a “rags to riches” story, Haitian-born actor Jimmy Jean-Louis grew up in the slums of Pétionville, Haiti until age 12 before moving to France and then to Los Angeles where he settled in 1998 to pursue an acting career. He is now a Hollywood celebrity.
His deep love for his homeland caused him to shift his focus from his acting career to help rebuild Haiti, ravaged by the 7.0 earthquake of January 12th, 2010. Since then, Jimmy has been very involved and often does interviews to speak about the situation in Haiti as he recently did following the catastrophic impact of Hurricane Matthew early last month.
Jimmy Jean-Louis is currently in Paris, France where he is shooting a TV show for TF1 based on a book by Harlan Coben “Just a look” with the French actress Virginie Ledoyen. Keeping his long time commitment to Haiti at heart, he was able to stay in touch with the Haitian Embassy in Paris to coordinate some of the help that came from France following Hurricane Matthew.
His credits include Toussaint Louverture (Best Actor at the Pan African Film Festival), Tears of the sun (with Bruce Willis), Phat Girlz(Mo’Nique), NBC Hit show Heroes, CW show Arrow, CBS Extant with Halle Berry produced by Steven Spielberg and more recently Joy with Jennifer Lawrence and Robert De Niro directed by David O Russell. In addition to shooting the TF1 TV show in Paris, Jimmy Jean-Louis is also currently shooting The Way, another TV show for Canal+ directed by Camille Delamarre (Brick Mansion, Transporter).
ADIFF Guest of Honor Jimmy Jean-Louis will attend the festival on November 25 and 26, 2016 in his capacity of actor, producer and Ambassador at large of his native country, Haiti. On Nov. 25, after attending the VIP Opening Night reception, he will present Opening Night romantic comedy Everything But a Man by Nnegest Likké (USA) about an African-American career woman (Monica Calhoun, The Best Man Holiday) who is sexy, strong, successful… and still single until she meets a mysterious Black man from another culture (Jimmy Jean-Louis).
On Saturday, November 26, he will participate in discussions following the presentation of the films The President has AIDS? by Arnold Antonin (Haiti) and Toussaint Louverture by Philippe Niang (France). On Saturday evening, Jimmy Jean-Louis will have a conversation with Lewis R. Gordon, Ph.D. Professor of Philosophy at UCONN-Storrs and Chairperson of the Awards Committee, Caribbean Philosophical Association, to talk about his life, his career and Haiti. The day will close with a reception.
Teachers College, Columbia University 525 West 120th Street, New York, NY 10027, 212.864-1760, info@nyadiff.org, www.nyadiff.org
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