Blood has flowed through the island of Hispaniola’s Massacre River, a border waterway also known as the Dajabón River and Rivière Massacre.

It got its name during the colonial struggle between the Spanish and the French, and it was the infamous site of the 1937 Parley Massacre, which defined relations between the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

In 2018, the river gave Haitian farmers hope when Haitian President Jovenel Moïse launched the construction of a canal near the border towns of Dajabón and Ouanaminthe.

In 2021, Haitian workers reported they were the victims of Dominican soldiers’ intimidation, and Moïse was killed. As the water dispute boiled, Dominican President Luis Abinader closed the border in 2023.

Samuel Dameus, a Haitian filmmaker born in Cap-Haitien, decided to film at the construction site of the Ouanaminthe canal project, a farmer-led effort that included Haitians boycotting the Dominican Republic.

Before a showing of Dameus’s documentary “The Heroes of the Massacre River” on Thursday night at the Little Haiti Cultural Complex in Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood, Bertrhude Albert described the film as groundbreaking.

“It captures one of the most important moments in modern Haitian history,” said Albert, the Haitian-American winner of the 2021-2022 UNESCO-Hamdan Prize for Excellence in Teacher Development.

Dameus, of BOYO Films, set up a GoFundMe fundraiser, had a $10,000 budget, and edited the film himself without experience. He committed to an original soundtrack that includes work produced by Manno Beats. It was released on iTunes on Sept. 10.

In some scenes, the music shows the fierce patriotism of the first country in the Americas to abolish slavery. In others, the music plays a cathartic role in the face of historic trauma.

“A lot of bodies were thrown in the river,” Albert said about the 1937 massacre of Haitian migrants at the hands of the Dominican military.

Dameus followed a diverse group of “heroes,” the volunteers who didn’t give up on the 1.5-mile-long irrigation canal and the dream to use the river water to revive about 7,000 acres in the Maribahoux plain.

The volunteers and their supporters used “#KanalLaPapKanpe” on social media, Haitian Creole for “the canal construction will not stop.”

Dameus featured Albert, the co-founder of nonprofit P4H Global, who fundraised with the Haitian diaspora to support the farmers in their struggle for food independence.

Dameus also delicately recorded child labor. He recorded a scene with practitioners of Vodou, a religion with roots in African slavery. And with aerial drone shots, he showed a massive tree-planting ceremony.

Albert said the canal proved successful, and it has not only “revolutionized” agriculture in the Maribahoux plain, but it has also developed new opportunities that need more investment.

“Since last year, it has decreased the price of rice by 33% in the region,” Albert said. “It has more than doubled the amount of farmers.”

The documentary, Albert said, shows that change is possible when people come together, but it also raises awareness about all that has yet to be done, and why she is still fundraising.

“It’s a powerful film that captures the might, the power, of the Haitian people,” Albert said, adding that the backing of the canal project grew into “a movement.”

How to watch the film

The film is available for streaming for a $9.99 fee on BOYOFilms.com in the U.S. and Canada.

There will be free watch parties from 6 to 10 p.m. on Friday at the New Covenant Church, at 1101 Northwest 33 St., in Pompano Beach, and from 6:30 to 10 p.m., on Dec. 7, at 2855 Coral Springs Drive, in Coral Springs.

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