Live stream preview

Watch this video and more on OVID.tv

Watch this video and more on OVID.tv

Start your free trial

Already subscribed? Sign in

Little By Little

UR rating icon
SUNU Journal • 1h 36m

Directed by Jean Rouch • Documentary • 1969 • 92 minutes

When we re-join Rouch's collaborators Zika and Ibrahim in Ayorou, Niger, the Little By Little company they had formed at the conclusion of JAGUAR has become a large import-export company. Hearing that a competitor is building a multistory building in Niamey, the directors of the company decide they must construct their own in Ayorou.

Zika flies to Paris to study the city's skyscrapers and meet with architects for advice. His mission quickly broadens into a full-fledged investigation of French life, the methods of which begin to suspiciously resemble those of imperialist European anthropology, and give a darkly comic charge to the proceedings.

Ibrahim eventually joins Zika in France, and the pair fall into their own version of contemporary European life, along the way picking up Senegalese clothing designer, a white French typist, and a hobo, all of whom return with them to Niger to work for Little By Little.

"A truly mesmerizing, frequently hilarious, and provocative masterpiece."—Eric Kohn, Cineaste

Tags
africa, african studies, anthropology, anthropology and archaeology, architecture, art and architecture, ayorou, business, cultural anthropology, damoure zika, ethnography, europe, favfrench, france, french culture, globalization, icarus films, imperialism, jaguar, jean rouch, labor and economics, lam ibrahim dia, little by little, may 1968, niger, obs, observational, ovid, ovid_ca, paris, race and racism, racism, s_0014, s_0018, s_0100, s_0126, s_0237, s_0303, s_0339, s_0375, social issues, sub-saharan africa, title_ijklm, title_l, western europe, world regions

Up Next in SUNU Journal

  • I Am Somebody
    30:31
    I Am Somebody

    I Am Somebody

    Directed by Madeline Anderson • Documentary • 1970 • 30 minutes

    In 1969, black female hospital workers in Charleston, South Carolina went on strike for union recognition and a wage increase, only to find themselves in a confrontation with the state government and the National Guard. Featuring An...

  • Conversations with Roy DeCarava
    28:02
    Conversations with Roy DeCarava

    Conversations with Roy DeCarava

    Directed by Carroll Parrot Blue • Documentary • 1984 • 28 minutes

    'It starts before you snap the shutter... It starts with your sense of what's important.' These are the words of Roy DeCarava, one of the foremost photographic artists of the twentieth century, contributor to the Family of Man exh...

  • Seven Songs for Malcolm X
    52:36
    Seven Songs for Malcolm X

    Seven Songs for Malcolm X

    Directed by John Akomfrah • Documentary • 1993 • 52 minutes

    An homage to the inspirational African-American civil rights leader, SEVEN SONGS FOR MALCOLM X collects testimonies, eyewitness accounts and dramatic reenactments to tell the life, legacy, loves, and losses of Malcolm X.

    Featuring inte...

×