Jean Rouch’s breakthrough work in cinéma vérité helped inspire the Direct Cinema movement in the U.S. and the New Wave in France, where he was a key figure in the Cinémathèque Française. His long career was intertwined with the transforming world of West Africa, characterized by innovations such as “shared anthropology” and “ethno-fiction,” embracing the daily life and imagination of a new generation of Africans. He developed an entirely new kind of documentary film practice that blurred the boundaries between fiction and reality. Special thanks to Livia Bloom and Icarus Films. The series is sponsored in part by IU’s Black Film Center/Archive, Department of Communication and Culture, Film and Media Studies, Departments of Anthropology, History, African Studies, French and Italian, and IU Cinema. Screenings are free, but ticketed. Jaguar (1967) Directed by Jean Rouch Saturday - February 9 - 6:30 p.m. One of Jean Rouch’s classic ethnofictions, Jaguar follows three young Songhay men from Niger, and the legendary performer Damouré Zika on a journey to the Gold Coast. Drawing from his own fieldwork on intra-African migration, Rouch collaborated with his three subjects on an improvisational narrative. The four filmed the trip in mid-1950s, and reunited a few years later to record the sound, the participants remembering dialogue and making up commentary as they went. The result is a playful film that finds three African men performing an ethnography of their own culture. (DigiBeta. 89 min. Not Rated.) 32 32 Jean Rouch Tickets: (812) 855-1103