 As they built an unsurpassed visual archive of world culture, Albert Kahn and his photographers turned their attention to widely divergent locations. This program follows the maritime odyssey of Lucien Le Saint, circa 1922, as he captured on film the daily lives of Newfoundland cod fishermen, as well as expeditions into northwestern Africa. Images from Morocco and Tunisia focus on occupying French soldiers, the prostitutes they patronized, and larger changes in those societies, while pictures taken in Dahomey (now Benin) shed light on the symbiotic relationship between Catholicism and the Vodun religion. Viewers also learn about the Colonial Exhibition of 1931, Kahn’s financial collapse, and the fate of his archive after his death in 1940. Contains brief nudity. A BBC/Musée Albert-Kahn (Département des Hauts-de-Seine—France) Co-production. (51 minutes)
|