Jean Rouch and the Birth of Visual Anthropology: A Brief History of the Comité international du film ethnographique

Abstract

The true scope of Jean Rouch's international activities for the advancement of visual anthropology is little known. Few in the field today are aware that he was for more than 10 years the driving force of the Comité international du film ethnographique, where he was secretary-general as of 1958. It is thanks to his initiative, backed by UNESCO, that the first anthropologist–filmmakers were able to present their films (and often see them hotly debated) in Paris, Brussels, Prague, Venice, Florence, and Locarno. He was, together with sociologist Edgar Morin (with whom he would produce the influential film Chronique d'un été), one of the collaborators of the Florence Festival dei Popoli, then entirely devoted to ethnographic and sociological films. Here Luc de Heusch, closely associated to Jean Rouch throughout those intrepid times, chronicles the seminal years of visual anthropology.