Movies: Comite Du Film Ethnographique

A ritual vase, the hampi, is placed in the center of the Musée de plein air de la République du Niger in Niamey, during a ritual ceremony featuring possession dances. With this film, Jean Rouch continues his ethnological and cinematographic study of ...

A Mauritanian worker, Sidi, works in France. Like most immigrant workers, he is employed to do the most difficult and dangerous jobs. Sidi and his comrades are exploited systematically and permanently, as much by their employers as by their own count...

Etnographic documentary about lion hunting in Africa....

When the male nurse Damouré Zika talks about AIDS with his two friends Lam and Tallou, under the admiring eye of his own wife Lobo, who is a nurse's aide, it is because he believes that AIDS is a "disease of love that can only be conquered by love." ...

This documentary offers an overview of French scientific research in Africa French scientific research in Africa: hydrology, botany, biology oil palm and coconut cultivation, industrial sea fishing and and urban planning. Film montage taking stock o...

A fortuitous meeting, late one afternoon, in the garden of the Tuileries, of one or two cameras, a tape recorder, and three cameramen/directors, Raymond Depardon, Jean Rouch, and Philippe Costantini....

Jean Rouch filmed this loving and humorous portrait of anthropologist and filmmaker Margaret Mead in September 1977 while he was a guest of the first Margaret Mead Film Festival. As both a friend and colleague, Rouch reveals a glimpse of the legendar...

Commemorative celebrations of the independence of the Republic of Niger filmed in December 1961 and 1962....

Germaine Dierterlen talks about Dogon mythology at a conference on the Bandiagara cliffs. The Songo canopy is a sacred site in Bandiagara. Its walls are covered with paintings depicting the different phases of creation. A little further on, in a cave...

In 1972, the Dogon of the Bandiagara cliff in Mali celebrated the funeral of Anaï Dolo, head of the Bongo Masks Society, who died at the age of 122. On this occasion, the large Bongo mask, is erected and for twenty days, family members, elders, men f...

The young goat herders from the cliff of Bandiagara practice on the stone drums of their ancestors. An ethnomusicological film experiment describing the subtle plays of the right and left hand of Dogon drummers....

"Tourou et Bitti", an eight minute documentary concerning a ritual in Niger, is yet another example of Rouch's excellence in creating documentaries which surpass the conventional documentary format. Just as frightening and fascinating as "Les maîtres...

In Sangha, through the window of her house, Germaine greets Djamgouno, her main informant. He then translates for her a conversation she has with a half-blind old man. She recounts her memories of a past party at which Amadigné worked with her as an ...

Lightning struck the hut of a Fulani shepherd near a village of settled fishermen, Ganghel, in Niger. A yenendi, a purification ceremony to obtain "water from the sky but not fire from the sky", is organized, with Sorko priests, ritual musicians and ...

A group of factory workers in post-independence Mozambique performs a ritual of song describing their work in South African gold mines, and decrying the evils of apartheid....

Two parts magical drama and one part straight documentary, this outing from famed ethnographic filmmaker Jean Rouch is set somewhere in Nigeria near a small village....

The title of this film translates literally as 'to put on a hori,' a hori being the Songhay term for ceremony of festival. Here it is used to refer to a ganandi, literally 'to make dance' This film concerns two women whom the zima [priest] had diag...

On the occasion of the bicentenary of the French Revolution, a group of Haitians in Paris undertake a voodoo ritual in front of Les Invalides, to reconcile the spirits of Napoleon Bonaparte and Toussaint L’Overture, the Haitian revolutionary who died...

A portrait of Zomo, the second of Damouré Zika’s many children. Employed at the zoo of the National Museum of Niger in Niamey, he offers us a tour, showing us the animals he takes care of. Then, when the work is finished, he invites us to an imprompt...

...