International House Philadelphia: Program Guide Fall 2013 | Page 25

Moi, un noir preceded by: Les maîtres fous
dir. Jean Rouch, France, 1955, digital, French with English subtitles, 36 min.

The Mad Masters (Les maîtres fous), the most controversial and also the most widely celebrated work by ethnographic filmmaker Jean Rouch, depicts a possession ritual of the Hauka religious sect using the delirious techniques of “ciné-trance.” The film opens on the bustling streets of Accra, the capital of the Gold Coast (modern-day Ghana), a major colonial port city that serves as a stage for the collision of the traditional and the modern. Among the diverse groups who populate the city are members of the Hauka religious movement, which began in Niger among the Songhay people, and migrated with them to The Gold Coast. Friday, November 8 at 7pm DIRECTORS IN FOCUS: JEAN ROUCH Moi, un noir
dir. Jean Rouch, France, 1958, digital, French with English subtitles, 70 min.

Omarou Ganda, who like the film’s other subject-collaborators plays himself under the name of a Western movie star—takes over the film’s narration, recreating dialogue and providing freewheeling commentary on his experiences. Moi, un noir captures both the sorrows and the occasional joys of these migrants’ experience in all their psychological complexity. preceded by: Mammy Water

dir. Jean Rouch, France, 1953, digital, French with English subtitles, 19 min.

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, Cote D’Ivoire for work. After a short introduction by Rouch, “Edward G. Robinson”—

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