Jean Rouch

Simple premise of this film is to follow the effects of colonialism on indigenous Africans via specific rituals developed as a reaction to the colonial system. The film turns into a crazy elaboration on both the madness of such a political system and man himself. (imdb comments)

This film, made in the summer of 1960 by the sociologist Edgar Morin and the ethnographer Jean Rouch, aimed to be as 'true as a documentary, but with the content of a fiction film.' Facilitated by improved technology (16mm film, sync sound, light hand held cameras) it pioneered a direct or live aesthetic dubbed 'cinema verite'... (IMDB Comments)

A fable produced as a sequel of Jaguar, which relates the curious and singular adventures of Damouré and Lam, two businessmen of contemporary Africa, in search of their role model. (der.org)

A week in the life of Oumarou Ganda and his friends from the Niger who are working as casual labourers in the harbour at Abidjan in the Ivory Coast. In the film, Ganda adopts the pseudonym of the film star Edward G. Robinson. (bfi.org.uk)

The adventures of three young men who leave their homeland Savannah, Niger, and go looking for fortune in Ghana. (imdb)

Documentary about the tribal Dogon people residing high atop the Bandiagara Escarpment in Mali, and their burial ceremony in particular.

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 (Rhomer) concerns a haberdasher and his umbrella; and La Muette (Chabrol), a bourgeois family and earplugs. (imdb)

Documentary about a hunt for hippopotamuses

'La Punition' is a cinéma-vérité/cinéma-direct as drama: a distillation of the lessons learned from shooting 'Chronique d'un été: Paris 1960' (which he'd just recently finished) and 'La pyramid humaine'. (KG)

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 fous", this one goes straight into the roots of ancient African cultures, in which music has an hypnotic effect, being at the same time an exorcism and a public show. Both the female and the male dancers are almost deities about to be unleashed. (imdb)

The arrival of Nadine, a new student, in the Abidjan Lyceum is the starting point for a discussion about interratial relationships. (imdb)

Only the Songhay hunters, a hereditary caste, are entitled to kill lions. The herdsmen are permitted only to throw stones at lions to chase them away. The Peul consider that the lion is necessary for the herd, and they are capable of identifying individual lions by the tracks they leave. But when a lion kills too many cattle, it has to be eliminated, because such a lion is a killer » (J. Rouch). (surrealmoviez)

The exploits of black slavers in 19th-century Nigeria are depicted here as they go on raiding parties to remote villages to gain captives for sale on the slave markets. (allmovie.com)

The entrepenurial Lam has a plan to pick up chickens cheap in the wild and sell them for a massive profit in the city. With his sidekick Tallou and his opportunistic friend Damouré they head for the bush in a ramshackle van nicknamed "Patience". They're in for a series of adventures and misfortunes, including police, a flat tire, disappearing villages, a hunter/devil/witch woman who keeps losing her animals, a river that must be crossed three times and their own doppelgangers.

By 1950, Rouch had made the first films set in including l'initiation à la danse des possédés which documented the spirit possession rituals of the Songhai, Zarma, and Sorko peoples living along the Niger river

Film of Jacques Doillon, who entrusts a sequence on Nigeria to Jean Rouch and one on New York to Alain Resnais. The film has one complete duration of 87 minutes; script by Gébé with Gerard Depardieu, Josiane Balasko, Jacques Higelin and the team of Splendid. Originally a comic strip published in Charlie-monthly magazine, this film is an ecological and "tiers-mondiste" utopia . (KG)

One of Rouch's first films, Les Magiciens de Wanzerbé that takes place in Niger, takes the viewer to a village of caravans and a world of Songhay magic.

The ritual of circumsision on Africa's tribe.

Remains the fun and tender portrait of a young Parisian in the 60s and a document of a time when cinema was written differently and played at breaking the rules. In that sense, Les veuves de 15 ans is indeed a film by Jean Rouch. (dvdclassik)

After experience a bad catch, the inhabitants of a fishing village hold a ceremony to honour Mammy Water and restore their fortunes.

This documentary portrays a ritual among the people of an Upper Volta community in Africa, where fifteen days of mourning pass between the death of their king and the introduction of his successor. (imdb)

Independence festivities in Ghana, formerly the Gold Coast, which on 6th March had become the first African colony to gain independence (Letterboxd.com)

Rain rituals with possession dances among the Songhay and Zarma of Simiri, Zermaganda, Niger. (Letterboxd)

Ethnographic short detailing a hippo hunt in a small village in Niger, and the ceremonies surrounding it.

The Makwayela dance is a form of protest, which the directors show a group of Mozambique factory workers performing.