Pierre Bernadin

Born

1971-11-22

Birthplace

Hinche, Haïti

Biography

Pierre Bernadin aka "Tito", born November 22, 1971 in Hinche (Haiti) and a writer, actor and screenwriter. Born in Haiti, Roosvelito, his original first name which the contraction will give Tito - is first entrusted to his grandmother who ensures his education and brings him maternal love. His parents had indeed left their island to look for work in France. The reunited family moves to the Paul-Éluard estate, in Bobigny in the Parisian suburbs, where Tito discovers primary school, learns French and makes his first friends, those with whom he will commit childhood pranks. He grows up with an abusive and brutal father and dreams of becoming a cartoonist, or a surgeon. As a teenager, Pierre Tito shows himself as a rebel and anti-militarist before ending up wearing the uniform for eighteen months, as a "disciplinary measure following the burglary of a joke shop" in Drancy. "I was a minor, the judge offered me this way out," he comments. After the army, Tito tried to earn an honest living and was recruited as a security guard. And his "beautiful love story". But that was without counting on the separation, then the depression. "I didn't know how to talk about my unhappiness to my loved ones. On the other hand, I found that the challenges thrown down by former robbers perfectly suited my desire to screw myself up", he only sees dying under the bullets of the police as a way out... He recounts this entry into organized crime in the book "Alias ​​Tito" by Françoise Toussaint published in 2012, where during a conversation with friends, former repeat offenders who recounted their thefts, some began to describe their modus operandi in the hold-ups they had committed. Pierre Tito Bernadin hates violence. As attentive as he was perplexed when listening to their anecdotes, he told them: "... But that's all bullshit... I think there are better ways to do it and that you can rob a bank differently..." Carried along by the pack that I had just heated up, and who were trying to take me at my word, I then let myself be carried away to answer one of them: "Aaah... you don't believe me?... well, go ahead; bring me your caliber. I'll show you. You choose a bank for me, and you wait for me. I'll rob it for you." Pierre Tito Bernadin would commit eleven robberies in five months. Tito would choose to surrender himself. He was sentenced to seven years in prison and served six until his release in 2009. In 2015, he published his biography in the book "Confession of a Suicidal Robber": "I just want to show young people who get lost on dangerous paths that it leads nowhere", and has worked with young people as a neighborhood referent since 2016. In colleges, at the bottom of towers or during activities intended for young people, the ex-robber tells his story without ever glorifying it. On the contrary, he makes a rather critical and severe judgment of his past. Tito has also been involved in humanitarian action and solidarity with his country of birth following the earthquake that devastated Haiti in January 2010. In 2013, Tito played his own role in the adaptation of the book "Alias ​​Tito", directed by Quentin Lestienne. Since then, he has had a series of film roles.