Les Maîtres fous

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3 formatsFrench3 subtitles languages

Les Maîtres Fous shows the ritual practices of a religious sect, the Haukas, in Accra, Ghana. The title of the film translates Mount Haouka (master of the wind, master of madness) but at the same time evokes the colonial situation where the masters (the Europeans) were perceived as mad. Appearing around 1927, in the Songhai possessions dances, these very particular geniuses were directly inspired by the French and British army and administrations. The emigrant workers solved their adaptation to the modern world by violent but controlled crises of possession of the Haouka cult. Shot in a single day, Jean Rouch managed to capture this ritual where each participant enters a trance and gives himself a role.

• Religion, Ethnology, Africa, Sociologie