Film Screenings / Programs / Retrospectives
HERE AND ELSEWHERE: THE FILMS OF JEAN ROUCH, PART II
November 8 – November 15
In November, Anthology Film Archives partners with the French Institute/Alliance Française (FIAF) for an extended look at the extraordinary films of anthropologist Jean Rouch, one of French cinema’s true visionaries. Working from the margins, Rouch elaborated a mammoth body of shorts and features over the course of his long career. “Here and Elsewhere” is a twin retrospective which allows both venues to return to this resonant legacy. FIAF’s program revisits several of Rouch’s best-known features as well as seldom-screened works shot by and with African colleagues. Anthology’s series reaches even deeper into the archive to present a selection of treasures ranging from his earliest ethnographic documentaries among Sorko fisherman and Hauka adepts to the edgy freedoms of his late fictions, with special programs of ciné-portraits, a rare showing of his only historical epic, and an exceptional night of films about music and ceremony hosted in conjunction with storied record label/travelers collective Sublime Frequencies.
The films we’re showing build their energy from the friction of unexpected encounters. Like the retrospective itself, these films pair here and elsewhere, bringing radically immediate images of contemporary life into contact with dreams, trances, flashbacks, and utopias. Equally indebted to scientific rigor and surrealism’s poisoned kiss, they share an ethical base, an openness to communication, and a diamond-edged sharpness that keep Rouch’s work vital and disturbing today.
For more info on the first part of the retrospective, taking place throughout November at the French Institute/Alliance Française, visit: http://www.fiaf.org/french%20film/fall2012/2012-11-ct-jean-rouch.shtml
In addition, NYU will host a one-day symposium on Jean Rouch on Friday, November 2 with several guest speakers. Visit cmchnyu.org for more details.
Curated by Sam Di Iorio (Hunter College) and Jamie Berthe (NYU), and presented with invaluable support from the Cultural Services of the French Embassy; very special thanks to Antonin Baudry, Delphine Selles-Alvarez, Muriel Guidoni, Nathalie Charles, Beatrice Arnaud & Emmanuel Libet. Thanks also to Marie Losier (French Institute/Alliance Française); Françoise Foucault (Comité du Film Ethnographique); Sophie Deswarte (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Béatrice de Pastre, Eric Le Roy, Jean-Baptiste Garnero, Fereidoun Mahboubi & Sophie Le Tétour (Archives françaises du film du CNC); Emilie de Brigard; Dominic Davis & Barbara Mathe (American Museum of Natural History); Hwa-Seon Choi (Doc & Film International); Alice Apley (Documentary Educational Resources); Mark Johnson & Liz Coffey (Harvard); Jonathan Miller & Livia Bloom (Icarus Films); Roger & Robert Busschots (Infofilm); Laurence Braunberger (Les Films du Jeudi); Josh Siegel (MoMA); Jonathan Howell (New Yorker Films); Pegi Vail & Faye Ginsburg (NYU); Guy Seligmann & Nicolas Petitjean (Sodaperaga); Hisham Mayet & Brian Nowak (Sublime Frequencies); and Roselly A. Torres Rojas (Third World Newsreel).
The subtitles for IN THE LAND OF THE BLACK MAGI, INITIATION INTO POSSESSION DANCE, and HOMMAGE À MARCEL MAUSS: GERMAINE DIETERLEN have been generously provided by Sub-Ti; thanks to Federico Spoletti & Emanuele Tasselli.
