Category: CENTRAL AMERICA, CARIBBEAN, ANDES

2:41 mins, b&w, silent – French intertitles.

Production: Pathé-Review. Available in the Gaumont-Pathé Archives, PR1928 6 2.

Background:  A very modest film but one that may be of some historical interest in that it is possibly the first film to represent the Wayú (Goajiro). Although the subjects are not specifically identified as Wayú, they are described as indigenous people and the location, close to Rio Hacha, on the Caribbean coast of Colombia, lies on the western boundary of the geographical area occupied by the Wayú. Their dress, physical appearance and house style are also all typically Wayú.

Film content:  the film consists of no more than a few static shots taken in and around a small settlement, followed by a portrait of a group of men standing in a general landscape (with some children larking about behind) and a sack being loaded onto a boat at the shore. An element of narrative closure is then imparted by a final classical shot of a tree silhouetted against a sunset.

The limited nature of the film itself contrasts markedly with the elaborate title frame.

Text: Saler 1988

39 mins., b&w, sound: voice-over commentary in French spoken by Georges-Henri Rivière.

Production : Établissements Braunberger-Richebé

Source : CNC at the Bnf

This films follows an expedition in French Guiana, up the Maroni river, then the Itany, eventually arriving in the Tumuc-Humuc mountain range. Shortly after arrival, the expedition encounters prisoners transported to the colony’s labour camps. But these are soon left behind as the expedition heads upstream to visit communities of the Boni Maroons (also known as Aluku) and also the ‘Roucouyenne’ Amerindian group (today known as the Wayana).

The narration of this film was performed by Georges-Henri Rivière, then a leading figure in the principal ethnographic museum in Paris, the musée du Trocadéro. It was produced by Pierre Braunberger as a partner in the company, Établissements Braunberger-Richebé.  Braunberger had previously produced the remarkable Voyage au Congo (1927), directed by André Gide and Marc Allégret, and much later, after the Second World War, he would become the producer of a number of Jean Rouch’s films.

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41 mins., b&w, silent, English intertitles

Source : NAFC, catalogue no: SA-77.1.4

This material has no main title, but does have some preliminary intertitles, suggesting a certain degree of editing.

It follows an expedition up the Saramaka river in 1927 or 1928, involving Melville J. Herskovits, who is seen in front of the lens, while Morton C. Kahn shot the film.

Text : Kahn 1929