Jean Rouch Movies

A young African couple discusses the influence of the West on their traditions. They discuss at length love, polygamy, bourgeois marriage, the...

This documentary interweaves celluloid and voice recordings by Maya Deren, and colleagues who knew her firsthand: Jean Rouch, Jonas Mekas, Alexander...

An aimless young woman is sent home from school with nothing to do. Drifting through the streets of Paris, she comes across a variety of people.

In February 1974, Pam Sambo Zima, the oldest of the priests of possession in Niamey, Niger, died at the age of seventy-plus years. In his backyard,...

Rouch’s earliest surviving film, which depicts the Sorko of Niger on a hippopotamus hunt. - MoMA

In 1946 ethnographic researcher Rouch had attempted to film a "Bangaoui," a hippopotamus hunt along the river Niger, but the results were...

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

A documentary cycle involving the Rarámuri or Tarahumara people of Northern Mexico. This film addresses rites of winter as well as peyote and...

Funeral rituals for the traditional leader Moro Naba of the Mossi at Ougadougou, Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso). Election ceremonies for his...

In the village of Simiri, Niger, fisherman Daouda is also a priest of the cult of Dongo, the god of Thunder for the Songhay people. He tells the...

Directed by Jean Rouch.

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

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...

Traditional houses and new architecture in Ayorou, an island on the River Niger in the archipelago of Tillaberi. The village and its activities; the...

Scene of possession during a ceremony to appeal for rain in Niger.

A compilation of black and white excerpts from five previous color films by Jean Rouch: Yenendi, the Rainmakers, Cemeteries in the Cliff, The Millet...

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...

In Wanzerbe, in Niger, caravans of Tuareg merchants and Bella arrive. On the market, food, potteries, salt, cotton, and flocks are exchanged... a...

Directed by Jean Rouch.