News & Archive

(January 22, 2002)

Thursday, February 21, 6:15 p.m.

After the film screening, join a discussion led by Former French Prime Minister Michel Rocard and Film Director Charles Belmont.

In 1988, violence erupted in New Caledonia, an island in the Pacific Ocean. War broke out between the Kanak, the indigenous people and the Caldoche, of French descent. Was this war a civil, local, tribal, or colonial conflict? How could the escalation of conflict be stopped? Seven people of different backgrounds were chosen to mediate this conflict. They undertook the "Mission of Dialogue" described in Les Mediateurs du Pacifique (Mediators of the Pacific), by Charles Belmont, the next film in a series on Conflict Resolution presented by the Program on Negotiation and the Harvard Negotiation Law Review.

The film portrays the mediators painstakingly working with both sides, turning them from violent confrontation towards mutual acceptance, using original footage of the events and the narratives of Michel Rocard, French Prime Minister at the time of the conflict, and the mediators. This subtitled version of the movie was also screened at the University of Tel Aviv and at the Jerusalem Film Archive. This will be its first U.S. showing.

The film will be shown Thursday, February 21, at 6:15 p.m., at the Harvard Film Archive in the Carpenter Center, 24 Quincy Street, Cambridge (interactive map). There will be an introduction by the director, Charles Belmont, and Alain Pekar Lempereur, Professor at ESSEC and Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School. After the screening, there will be a discussion with Former Prime Minister Rocard. Refreshments will be served.

This event is free and open to the public.

Co-sponsored by the French Consulate in Boston, ESSEC and IRENE Paris, and the Harvard Center for European Studies.