Monsieur Albert, prophète

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 Rainmakers

Rain rituals with possession dances among the Songhay and Zarma of Simiri, Zermaganda, Niger. Dry Season: The village of Simiri; water carriers, the rainbow tree. Possession of the faithful making their way to the spirits' hut on the seventh day of the seventh month of the dry season. All of the inhabitants of the village go to the spirits' hut to celebrate the Yenendi, the festival of the rain. Preparation by the musicians: under the shelter, gourd drummers. The chief of the village, old Wadi Sorko, prepares his violin. Dance of the "spirit" horse (possession dance).

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.

Little by Little

An African travels to Paris to learn about the construction of tall buildings, but is soon taken up with the oddities of French life.

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.

Battle on the Great River

After an unsuccessful attempt in 1946 to film a traditional bangaoui (hippopotamus hunt) on the Niger River, Jean Rouch returns several years later to document the ritual in full. The film records the ceremonial preparations, spiritual practices, and seasonal hunt conducted by Sorko fishermen, situating the event within its cultural and ritual context rather than as spectacle.

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.

Cinématon

Cinématon is a 156-hour long experimental film by French director Gérard Courant. It was the longest film ever released until 2011. Composed over 36 years from 1978 until 2006, it consists of a series of over 2,821 silent vignettes (cinématons), each 3 minutes and 25 seconds long, of various celebrities, artists, journalists and friends of the director, each doing whatever they want for the allotted time. Subjects of the film include directors Barbet Schroeder, Nagisa Oshima, Volker Schlöndorff, Ken Loach, Benjamin Cuq, Youssef Chahine, Wim Wenders, Joseph Losey, Jean-Luc Godard, Samuel Fuller and Terry Gilliam, chess grandmaster Joël Lautier, and actors Roberto Benigni, Stéphane Audran, Julie Delpy and Lesley Chatterley. Gilliam is featured eating a 100-franc note, while Fuller smokes a cigar. Courant's favourite subject was a 7-month-old baby. The film was screened in its then-entirety in Avignon in November 2009 and was screened in Redondo Beach, CA on April 9, 2010.

French Fried Vacation

Holidaymakers arriving in a Club Med camp on the Ivory Coast are determined to forget their everyday problems and emotional disappointments. Games, competitions, outings, bathing and sunburn accompany a continual succession of casual affairs.

Aya of Yop City

While Aya has dreams of becoming a doctor, her two best friends, Adjoua and Bintou, just like to hang out and spend their evenings dancing, drinking and flirting with boys. Their ambition is to follow Plan C: Combs, Clothes and Chasing Men! But big trouble comes to town when Adjoua realizes she’s pregnant, and the baby’s father is the spoiled son of one of the richest and most feared men in the whole country.