Les Maîtres Fous + Moi, un Noir

Les Maîtres Fous (The Mad Masters)

D: Jean Rouch, France 1955, 26 min, Engl. subtitles

The best-known film by the French director Jean Rouch, has polarised people ever since it was first released fifty years ago. Is it an ethnographic document of a fascinating anti-colonial dance ritual in West Africa, or an example of late-colonial Africa romanticism?

Moi, un Noir (Me, a Black)

D: Jean Rouch, France 1958, 72 min, Engl. subtitles

With Moi, un Noir Jean Rouch coined the expression ethno-fiction, which did much to influence the style of Nouvelle Vague. Rouch accompanies a Nigerian docker and veteran of the war in Indo-China: work on the docks, an afternoon nap, gambling in the evening – chance decides who will emerge the winner at the end of the day.