Au pays de l’or et du bagne [In the Country of Gold and Penal Colonies](1933) – dir. Jean-Paul Goreaud

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.

[This is a stub: more notes to follow]

© 2018 Paul Henley