Why didn't we think of this? :)

The child of a middle-class family in Portsmouth, R.I., Haney won admission to Harvard in 1980. To help pay his tuition, he began cleaning toilets in campus housing, where he noticed that fireplaces were going unused. So, he and a friend drove a truck to New Hampshire, bought a large load of firewood, and brought it back to Harvard Yard. They made $4,000, and an entrepreneur was born.

from http://www.boston.com/ae/movies/articles/2007/06/18/bitter_vision_grows_in_the_sugarcane_fields/

Bitter vision grows in the sugarcane fields

Filmmaker moved by workers' plight

By Don Aucoin, Globe Staff  |  June 18, 2007

WAYLAND -- Back in the beginning -- before the film-festival award, before the cease-and-desist letter and the threat of a lawsuit, before the attention from Congress and Amnesty International -- before all that, Bill Haney had nothing more in mind than a few modest steps to improve healthcare in the Dominican Republic.

But then Haney sat down for lunch with an intense, charismatic priest, the Rev. Christopher Hartley . The priest told him, point-blank: "The biggest contribution you could make would be to explore the conditions of the people in my parish."

With those words, the wheels were set in motion for a project that would consume three years of Haney's life and immerse him in a world that would appall, anger, and ultimately inspire him. He discovered both a movie and a mission -- not that Haney has ever made much of a distinction between the two.

That world was the "bateyes," the workers' enclaves near the sugarcane fields in the Dominican Re public where Haitian migrants toil. The conditions under which the Haitian cane-cutters live and work are the subject of Haney's wrenching new documentary, "The Price of Sugar." Narrated by Paul Newman, the movie was screened over the weekend at the Nantucket Film Festival and Provincetown International Film Festival.

"The Price of Sugar" depicts the lives of the Haitian workers as marked by hunger, arduous labor, and day-to-day desperation. It is a title -- and a film -- designed to make US consumers think about the human cost of sweetening their morning coffee. "We told a small story so we could tell a big story," said Haney, 45, sitting in his book-lined home office, noting that the Dominican Republic exports much of its sugar to the United States . "This story is partly how US consumers and taxpayers subsidize things they don't know about and would never support if they did know. It's what capitalism looks like if unchecked by the hand of government."

"The more I got into the story, the more shocking and powerful it became," added Haney. "We saw intimidated, almost traumatized Haitians. Frequently, there would be guys with weapons on horses who would ride around us. They never pointed a gun at me, but we were told that if the Haitians tried to flee they would be captured and beaten. These overseers were a law unto themselves."

US Representative James McGovern, Democrat of Massachusetts, who met with Haney last Wednesday in Washington, said he found the film deeply troubling and plans to organize screenings for other members of Congress.

"We're going to look into this issue," said McGovern. "Anyone who sees this will want to take action."

Called into priesthood

At the center of the film is Hartley, the impassioned and implacable son of a wealthy family who startled his parents by announcing, as a teenager, that he wanted to become a priest. "He had a moment of feeling he was called by God, and instead of living the life of a wealthy playboy, he went to Calcutta and worked with Mother Teresa for 20 years," Haney said. When he was assigned to San Jose de los Llanos, a town in the Dominican Republic , Hartley began championing the cause of the Haitian migrant workers. That set him at odds with the Vicini family, the sugar barons whose plantations are the focus of "The Price of Sugar."

"He's a complicated guy," Haney says. "He's not a saint. He could occasionally be self-righteous. But this guy has given up every material thing. He's committed to the poorest of the poor. . . . It's the heroic tale of how one person can really make a difference."

But it is not a story with a happy ending. Hartley was removed from his parish and, he has said, forced to leave the country last year under pressure from the Vicini family and the Dominican government. Haney, meanwhile, may soon be the target of a lawsuit by the Vicini family. Grupo Vicini, the family-run company under which the sugar plantations operate, hired the powerful Washington law firm Patton Boggs, which sent Haney a letter last month demanding he stop showing the movie. The cease-and-desist letter from Patton Boggs attorney Read K. McCaffrey says that the film contains false statements and misrepresentations, and that it is defamatory of his clients "and, indeed, of the country itself."

McCaffrey declined the Globe's request for an interview, saying through a spokesman that he was unable to comment "since this matter will involve litigation." McCaffrey told the IPS news agency this month that he had visited the bateyes and had "seen conditions that are significantly better than those in this documentary. It is unfortunate that the film is being shown as something accurate when it is propaganda."

Campos de Moya, vice president of communications for Grupo Vicini, could not be reached for comment. His assistant said he was out of the country.

** said he stands behind the accuracy of his film, adding that he hired fact-checkers before releasing it. "These lawsuits are designed to bully you," he said. "Nobody wants to spend five, six, seven years being sued. But it's not going to stop us from showing it."

So far, the reception from audiences has been favorable. In March the film, written and directed by Haney, and produced by him and Eric Grunebaum , won the Audience Award at the South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Texas. In addition, Amnesty International has asked Haney for permission to screen "The Price of Sugar" to its chapters as part of an effort to build support for legislative change to help the sugar workers.

A life-altering experience

All in all, making the film was a transforming experience for Haney, who was no stranger to life transformations already.

The child of a middle-class family in Portsmouth, R.I., Haney won admission to Harvard in 1980. To help pay his tuition, he began cleaning toilets in campus housing, where he noticed that fireplaces were going unused. So, he and a friend drove a truck to New Hampshire, bought a large load of firewood, and brought it back to Harvard Yard. They made $4,000, and an entrepreneur was born. Before his freshman year was over, Haney had started his own company, built around a technology to reduce air pollution.

Over the next two decades, he would help launch more than a dozen technology companies. But as he reached his late 30s, Haney began to feel restless.

"I was sort of groping around, trying to figure out what I could do that might be useful," he said. He had been bitten by the filmmaking bug when he helped finance a couple of films (including Errol Morris's "Fast, Cheap & Out of Control"). So he and a friend, Tim Disney (son of Roy Disney and great-nephew of Walt Disney), decided to make movies .

Haney attended a screenwriting seminar led by the famed Robert McKee (memorably featured in "Adaptation") and began writing scripts. The first collaboration between Haney and Disney, "A Question of Faith," won critical respect but flopped commercially. But in the past seven years he and Disney have been involved in the production of a dozen more films.

It is clear that the poverty and misery he saw while shooting "The Price of Sugar" shook him to the core. "The extreme vulnerability of the people," Haney said slowly. "That's how most people in the world live. It's very scary to have a child and think you won't be able to take care of them. To live that way and still find meaning, still find joy, still find God: I found the courage required to get through their daily lives inspiring."

Don Aucoin can be reached at aucoin@globe.com.