1-World Festival of Foreign Films
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"Le Jaguar"
1954
Directed by Jean Rouch 

Three young men from the savannah of Niger leave their homeland to seek wealth and adventure on the coast and in the cities of Ghana in this film that is part fiction, part documentary and part social commentary.  Filmed in the 1950s when no portable synchronized sound equipment was available, Jean Rouch had the main characters of the film improvise a narrative while they viewed the footage which in itself was improvised. The resulting soundtrack consists of remembered dialog, joking and exclamations, and questions and explanations about the action on screen. The three young men, a herdsman, a fisherman and their friend, travel for a month to the coast of Ghana and eventually part to take jobs in the cities. Successful but homesick, they return to Niger; they have become jaguars with a knowledge of life in the modern city. English narration.
96 minutes.