The Director of The Road to Fondwa is Dan Schnorr, whose experience as a long-term volunteer in Haiti led him to participate in the making of the film.

Dan taught at the University of Fondwa, Haiti’s first university in the mountains, in the faculty of Veterinary Medicine. He is believed to be the first person ever to teach university-level Genetics in Haitian Creole.

Dan graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a Bachelor’s Degree in Philosophy, and is now a student at Columbia Medical School.

The Co-Director and Editor of the film is Justin Brandon, an aspiring filmmaker with an insatiable appetite for adventure.

In 2004, he earned a B.A. in Sociology from the University of Notre Dame. In 2004 he worked in the communications department of the largest community foundation in Puerto Rico and had numerous photographs published in major San Juan publications.

After a short, yet sweet, stint pursuing his musical interests as guitarist and promoter for the popular Chicago band Bajawalla in the summer of 2005, he set his sights on video production and landed a job as Associate Producer on Comcast Sports Network’s Blue and Gold Irish Weekly which chronicled the historic 2005 season of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team.

In the spring of 2006 Justin successfully initiated The Volta Youth Project and spent six weeks in rural Ghana shooting an upcoming documentary film by the same name. He has spent time on six continents.

Justin has worked for Google in Silicon Valley, and currently runs online marketing for BetterWorld.com.

The Executive Producer of the film is Brian McElroy, a 2005 graduate of Notre Dame.

After graduating from college, Brian volunteered for one year as the Secretary of the University of Fondwa. He has worked with Haitian communities in Paris, New York, the Dominican Republic, and Florida, speaks Creole, French, and Spanish, and has developed extensive personal relationships with students, nuns, priests, pastors, volunteers, and peasants throughout the Fondwa valley and in other areas of Haiti.

He co-founded the UNIF USA Foundation to support the ongoing work of the University of Fondwa, and served as the organization’s first Executive Director.

Brian is currently learning Portuguese while working as a freelance writer in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Statement from the Director, Dan Schnorr:

How to capture a community in 40 minutes of film?

Five weeks of filming in Haiti followed by countless hours spent editing nearly 50 hours of footage have shown me and my fellow filmmakers that this is an impossible task.

Which shots most succinctly depict the breathtaking beauty of the Haitian countryside, or the crushing poverty ubiquitous to life in one of the world’s poorest nations?

Which interviews most accurately portray the lifestyle and mindset of the people we encountered during production?

Though film offers a powerful medium through which to begin exploring rural Haiti, no collection of clips could ever do full justice to the intricate obstacles faced by the people living there, or to the exciting measures being undertaken in villages like Fondwa to overcome them.

Acknowledging this, we intend for The Road to Fondwa to serve not as a conclusion, but rather as an introduction.

Our aim is to present viewers with a glimpse of what life is really like for many of the people living only a few hundred miles outside of the United States’ borders, and to provide background from which to build an understanding of the issues contributing to that reality.

What the viewer does with this information is up to him or her.

We hope that the film will inspire some people to learn more about Haiti and to become active in supporting the development of Fondwa and the building of the University of Fondwa, Haiti’s first rural University.

Furthermore, though this documentary focuses on one village, the ideas presented have broader implications for anyone interested in development issues. I am sure those who have worked in any developing country will find points of overlap with the problems afflicting rural Haiti.

Ultimately, some of the strategies being implemented in Fondwa may have application in other parts of the developing world.

Lastly, the film is meant to serve as a tribute to the spirit and innovation of the people of Fondwa, with whom I spent one year of my life. Theirs is truly a story worth telling.