1-World Festival of Foreign Films
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"Les Maitres Fous"
1955
Directed by Jean Rouch

The ceremony of a West African religious movement, the Hauku, which was widespread in Niger and Ghana from the 20s to the 50s is documented in Jean Rouch's quintessential film. In 1954, Rouch was asked by a small group in Ghana to film their annual ceremony in which the participants would enter into a trance and become possessed by a variety of spirits associated with the western colonial powers. Today, Les Maitres Fous remains as one of the great works of ethnographic cinema. English narration.
29 minutes.