Documentary Educational Resources - Geography / Africa / Niger / All Films

Friends, Fools, Family

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 14:53:00 GMT

Friends, Fools, Family
Buy Now: $320.00

Jean Rouch is known to many worldwide as a French anthropologist and innovative filmmaker. Much of his work is linked to the birth of cinéma vérité. However, Rouch's fifty-year involvement with a particular group of people in Niger shines a more personal light on his work - one of friendship and collaboration. Together with this group, Rouch made numerous ethnographic films and developed their own cinematographic style. These films have been termed 'ethno-fictions.'

In 2003, two Danish anthropologists and filmmakers went to Niger to make a film with Rouch's friends. Their film was going to be an exploration of the methods of the group. It became a story about how this unique collaboration came to change the lives of both the filmmaker and his friends.

This DVD also contains a 15 minute clip of Rouch's friend and collaborator Damouré talking about the film Jaguar.

Visit the Jean Rouch tribute website.

Visit Niger to see additional products in this category.

Jean Rouch - Premier Film, 1947-1991

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 11:12:00 GMT

Jean Rouch - Premier Film, 1947-1991
Buy Now: $295.00

The director, Dominique Dubosc, gives Jean Rouch the opportunity to improvise a new commentary for his first film made in 1947, In the Land of the Black Magi (Au pays des mages noirs) of a Songhay possession dance in Niger. Rouch explains the sacrifices he made due to the producer that took on his film and the “monster” thus created; his footage was re-edited with a new ending, new titles, stock footage, “tropical muzak,” and a newsreel-style narration heavy on drama and highlighting the exotic. After viewing the first version, Rouch critiques his own work and puts it in perspective in the context of the time.

Finally, the intelligence and insight of Rouch emerge as he “finishes” his first film: “This is not only an evocation of the beginnings of Jean Rouch, ethnologue and film director - it is his first film. One sees him improvising a new commentary to In the Land of the Black Magi, just as he improvised the voiceovers of most of his other films.” The film transforms from a product of colonialism built around the commentary in which “you no longer see the images,” into a new form in which the film's true meaning is illuminated and the humanity of the subjects restored.

Visit Niger to see additional products in this category.

Jean Rouch and His Camera in the Heart of Africa

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 11:12:00 GMT

Jean Rouch and His Camera in the Heart of Africa
Buy Now: $320.00

"Filming filmmakers is not an easy task: from time to time there are glimpses of show-off tactics, private jokes which make holiday and family films so unbearable. To undertake such a project in Africa is almost acrobatic. There are so many obstacles ... Philo Bregstein and Dutch television, no doubt for the first time in the history of world television, have managed to make a successful film on filmmakers from Niger, avoiding all the standard traps lying around for Western travelers, thoughtless givers of 'poisoned presents.'"

-- Jean Rouch

Jean Rouch and His Camera in the Heart of Africa provides an in-depth look at the film work of Jean Rouch and his associates from Niger who participated in the production of many of Rouch's Niger-based films. Most of the camera and technical work was accomplished by Niger filmmakers. Bregstein, Rouch, Damoure, Lam, their friend Tollou and others converse about filmmaking and filmmakers who have had historical influence in the field; segments from several of Rouch's earlier film works are interspersed with the filming in Niger and with interviews. Some of the films from which clips are included and discussed by Rouch and Bregstein are Chronicle of a Summer, Moi, un Noir, Tourou et Bitti, Battle on the Great River, Jaguar, Les Maitres Fous, The Lion Hunters, and Petit a Petit.

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

Cinema du Reel, 1979

Visit Niger to see additional products in this category.

Rouch's Gang

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 08:59:00 GMT

Rouch's Gang
Buy Now: $320.00

In 1991, Jean Rouch started work on his new feature film Madame l'Eau, much of which was shot in Holland. The documentary Rouch's Gang follows the film crew and provides a glimpse behind the scenes as Jean Rouch and his four friends from Niger make their film. By providing an outsider's view of Madame l'Eau, the documentary provides insight into how Rouch approaches his films.

Jean Rouch's position in film is paradoxical: he is one of the most important post-war French film-makers, while also being one of the least known. This is because he directs his films outside the commercial circuit. He has made more than 140 films, many of which have an anthropological character. As starting points he uses: reconstruction, fiction and provocation. Examples are Jaguar (1954/67), Moi un Noir (1957), Chronique d'un Ete (1961), and Corcorico, Monsieur Poulet (1974). With these films Rouch had a significant influence on the early period of the Nouvelle Vague. Rouch was inspired by the work of Flaherty, Vertov and Rossillini. He has raised the improvisational approach with non-professional actors to an art form.

Most of his fiction films were shot with four African friends; Damoure Zika, Lam Ibrahim Dia and Tallou Mouzourane as actors and Moussa Hamidou as sound man. Rouch has been their friend for more than forty years. This bond is the theme of the documentary Rouch's Gang, a bond of friendship which has become increasingly complex and can no longer be described in a simple way.

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

Margaret Mead Film Festival

IWF International Film Festival

ICAES Film Festival

Visit Niger to see additional products in this category.