After graduating in civil engineering, Rouch decides to go to Africa and work as a public works engineer. He is assigned to Niger, where he builds roads and bridges. While witnessing the death of workers struck by an electrical spark during construction works, he discovers the mysteries of religion and magic of the Songhai and decides to study ethnology. After returning to France, he attended the courses of Marcel Mauss and Marcel Griaule. Researcher at the CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique), he created in Paris in 1953 with Henri Langlois, Enrico Fulchignoni, Marcel Griaule, André Leroi-Gourhan and Claude Lévi-Strauss, the Ethnographic Film Committee (Comité du Film Ethnographique), based in the Musée de L´Homme. (...) Taking an analytical look at the customs, traditions and rituals of the African peoples and, in a rather innovative way, using lightweight 16mm cameras, Jean Rouch, with a great freedom of style in face of the traditional canons of ethnographic practice, alternating between documentary and fiction, obtained the international recognition of filmmakers and specialists of his field. He is a founder and one of the earliest theorists of visual anthropology. Influenced by Dziga Vertov and Robert Flaherty, Jean Rouch is one of the founders of cinéma vérité. He was a source of inspiration and constant reference for the directors of Nouvelle Vague. President of the French Cinematheque for five years (1986 to 1991), he is awarded the International Peace Prize. His work, crowned with several prestigious rewards, is inscribed in the universal history of cinema. On his final mission to Niger, on the road to Tahoua in the east of the country, he was the victim of a deadly car accident on February 15, 2004, at nightfall, 16 kilometres from the town of Birni N'Konni.

José da Silva Ribeiro