Jean Rouch Movies

On the Niger River, the island of Ayorou is home to a “singing stone,” an imposing boulder rock covered with cupules. It is used as a...

A film by Jean Rouch.

This film, made in one afternoon, is an "inspired promenade," the discovery of an exhibition with improvised text and commentary. Five shot sequences...

Directed by Jean Rouch.

A Nigerian traditionalist who draws his inspiration from bird warbling to compose music to accompany his verse chronicles.

A portrait of Zomo, the second of Damouré Zika’s many children. Employed at the zoo of the National Museum of Niger in Niamey, he offers...

On a quest to obtain some misdelivered camera batteries, Sam finds himself in a Rotterdam-based sex shop. Here he meets Marty who works there, and...

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

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

Rain rituals with possession dances among the Songhay and Zarma of Simiri, Zermaganda, Niger. Dry Season: The village of Simiri; water carriers, the...

A film by Jean Rouch.

In Mali, women's funeral rite takes place in the village of Bongo, in Dogon country.

Directed by Jean Rouch.

An artist is invited to Turin and is asked to do a painting inspired by the city and the work of Giorgio De Chirico.

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...

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...

The young goat herders from the cliff of Bandiagara practice on the stone drums of their ancestors. An ethnomusicological film experiment describing...

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