HUMAN PYRAMID + THE PUNISHMENT

A leading figure of the cinéma vérité movement and inspiration for the French New Wave, Jean Rouch's documentaries of the 1960s revolutionized ethnographic filmmaking. In THE HUMAN PYRAMID, a work of "groundbreaking metafiction" (The New Yorker), Rouch meets with a group of white colonial French students and their Black African classmates (all non-actors) in a lycée on the Ivory Coast. Inspired by the arrival of a new white classmate (Nadine Ballot), Rouch encourages the students to enact an improvised drama about the realities of interracial relationships, transforming their attitudes towards each other in the process. Included as a bonus film, Rouch's THE PUNISHMENT sees Nadine Ballot return as an aimless young student wandering the streets of Paris in a vérité portrait of youth culture in transition.