Sigui 1971: The Dune of Idyeli

Sigui 1967: L'enclume de Yougo

Beginning of the sextenary festival of the Sigui among the Dogon of the Bandiagara cliff in Mali. This first ceremony takes place at the village of Yougo Dogorou. The men, shaved and dressed in ritual clothes of the Sigui, enter the public square dancing the snake dance. They honor the terraces of the famous dead of the last sixty years and go to drink the sacramental millet beer.

Sigui 1968: The Dancers of Tyogou

The second year of the Sigui ceremonies, celebrated every sixty years by the Dogons of the Bandiagara cliffs, Mali, takes place in the village of Tyogou.

Sigui 1969: The Cave of Bongo

The third year of the Sigui ceremonies, celebrated every sixty years by the Dogons of the Bandiagara cliffs, Mali, takes place in the village of Bongo.

Sigui 1970: The Clamours of Amani

The fourth year of the Sigui ceremonies, celebrated every sixty years by the Dogons of the Bandiagara cliffs, Mali, takes place in the village of Amani.

Mad Mimes

An anthropological study of a cargo cult in a fictitious self-marginalized commune, which existed next to the Moscow Ring Road - a highway that marks the boundaries of the Russian capital - and survived mainly on roadside trash. Although the road provided for their basic needs, the existence of the commune was extremely precarious and highly dependent on the roadway's fluctuations. This dependency led them to develop a cargo cult of the road.

The Ordinary Madness of a Daughter of Ham

In Jean Rouch's cinematic reinterpretation of Julius-Amédée Laou's theatrical work, a freshly appointed nurse steps into the chaotic world of a psychiatric ward. Tasked with nurturing the minds within, she forms a profound connection with a patient from Martinique who has been confined within the institution's walls for half a century. As their relationship deepens, the lines between reality and delusion blur, weaving a complex narrative of human connection and psychological intrigue.

Ciné-Portrait of Raymond Depardon

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.

Margaret Mead: A Portrait By a Friend

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 legendary Mead in her later years.

The Burial of the Hogon

Burial of the Hogon of Sanga, Dogon religious leader of Lower Ogol, Mali.

I, a Negro

Winner of the prestigious Prix Louis Delluc in 1958, "Moi, un noir" marked Jean Rouch's break with traditional ethnography, and his embrace of the collaborative and improvisatory strategies he called "shared ethnography" and "ethnofiction". The film depicts an ordinary week in the lives of men and women from Niger who have migrated to Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire for work.

Un lion nommé l'Américain

A film about a lion.

Chronicle of a Summer

Paris, summer 1960. Anthropologist and filmmaker Jean Rouch and sociologist and film critic Edgar Morin wander through the crowded streets asking passersby how they cope with life's misfortunes.

Funeral at Bongo: The Death of Old Anai

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 from neighbouring villages purify the village.

Sigui 1970: The Clamours of Amani

The fourth year of the Sigui ceremonies, celebrated every sixty years by the Dogons of the Bandiagara cliffs, Mali, takes place in the village of Amani.

Six in Paris

Six vignettes set in different sections of Paris, by six directors. St. Germain des Pres (Douchet), Gare du Nord (Rouch), Rue St. Denis (Pollet), and Montparnasse et Levallois (Godard) are stories of love, flirtation and prostitution; Place d'Etoile (Rohmer) concerns a haberdasher and his umbrella; and La Muette (Chabrol), a bourgeois family and earplugs.

Brise-glace

Collaborative experimental project on which three director made different films about the Swedish icebreaker "Frej".

The Year 01

The film narrates a utopian abandonment, consensual and festive of the market economy and high productivity. The population decides on a number of resolutions beginning with "We stop everything" and the second "After a total downtime will be revived-reluctantly-that the services and products including lack will prove intolerable. Probably: water to drink, electricity for reading at night, the TSF to say "This is not the end of the world, this is an 01, and now a page of Celestial Mechanics". The implementation of these resolutions is the first day of a new era, Year 01. The Year 01 is emblematic of the challenge of the 1970s and covers such diverse topics as ecology, negation of authority, free love, communal living, rejection of private property and labor.

Babatou, Three Pieces of Advice

Once upon a time, in the middle of the last century, a great warrior named Babatou. Nigerian jumper from the region Dounga Gurunsi invaded the country and settled there. The brave prisoners were integrated into the army, women espoused. For fifty years, the adventurous young people from Niger Babatou went to live in the epic.

The Mad Masters

The subject of the film was the Hauka movement. The Hauka movement consisted of mimicry and dancing to become possessed by French Colonial administrators. The participants performed the same elaborate military ceremonies of their colonial occupiers, but in more of a trance than true recreation.

Mammy Water

"Mammy Water" is mother sea, source of food. Jean Rouch filmed this short documentary in the Gulf of Guinea, in Ghana, where is held a colorful festival, the Chama, in which the participants offer cassava, gin and tobacco to the spirits of water and sacrifice a white ox to thank them and express their gratitude and respect.