Ethnographic filmmaker Jean Rouch pioneered a new type of film by recruiting a small group of immigrants from Niger living in Abidjan in the Ivory Coast, and constructed a fictionalized documentary about a week in their lives with their very active input. Rouch followed them with a16mm camera and filmed a week in their lives, largely following their guidance as to what should be shot.
Rouch assembled an edit of the footage, and then brought the subjects to a studio in Paris where they provided a narration which was assembled and recorded and laid over the footage. This allowed Oumarou Ganda, Petit Touré, Alassane Maiga and Amadou Demba. To construct a narrative that "explained" their day-to-day lives.
It's a fascinating blend of documentary truth with the kind of truth one gets from a story, only its a story constructed mainly by it's own characters.
