Ciné-portrait de Bill Witney

A series of shorts by Jean Rouch, made with the help of several hands. And the as-of-yet unseen rushes from a film on Rouch, in which he appears. A screening inspired by a passion for cinema, where we see Rouch in all of his roles (director, cameraman, actor…), surround by a host of filmmakers who were both friends and accomplices (Joris Ivens, Henri Storck, Raymond Depardon, Philippe Costantini, William Witney, Philo Bregstein, Djingareï Maiga, Moussa Hamidou, Damouré Zika…). A screening that joyfully mixes documentary and fiction, his own films and those of others, and discreetly gives us a disconcerting lesson that commingles cinema and life… A screening built backwards, in the way that Jean Rouch often liked to end by backing out of the shot, the sequence and the film simultaneously – tracking back over ten years, to the moment that saw the birth of the festival that Rouch himself had helped to create… (Andrea Paganini)