Jean Rouch

Ethnographer who began using film to record African rituals and customs in 1947. Rouch documented several aspects of African life before developing an interest in the film medium itself and experimenting with techniques which would later become central to cinema verite. Rouch's "Chronicle of a Summer" (1961) is seen by many as marking the beginning of the verite movement; co-directed by sociologist Edgar Morin, it used the new lightweight film equipment to capture the diversity and variety of Parisian life. Rouch later returned to filming African subjects, frequently addressing the conflicts between European and African cultures.