The Jean Rouch International Festival wins the CNRS Medal for Scientific Mediation 2021

In September 2021, the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) has crowned with a médaille de la médiation scientifique the Festival international Jean Rouch, which will celebrate its 40th anniversary in autumn 2021.

This medal will be awarded on September 29, 2021 at the Centre international de conférences de Sorbonne Université (Paris) at the end of the 5th edition of the Forum des Nouvelles Initiatives en médiation scientifique (NIMS) organized by the CNRS and the Conférence des présidents d'université (CPU).

Awarded for the first time in 2021 and supported by the French Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation (MESRI), the new CNRS Medaille de la médiation scientifique honors women and men, scientists or research support staff, for their action, whether one-off or perennial, personal or collective, enhancing science within society.

Festival international Jean Rouch, anthropologie visuelle

The Festival international Jean Rouch, organized each year in Paris by the Comité du film ethnographique, is one of Europe's leading events for documentary cinema in the human and social sciences (SHS). Bringing together singular perspectives on the contemporary world, over the years it has become a unique and unmissable venue offering professionals and the general public a space for reflection and sharing.

Founded in 1982 by ethnologist-filmmaker Jean Rouch (1917-2004), innovative scientist and father of visual anthropology, the Jean Rouch International Festival is the meeting place for filmmakers and researchers in the human and social sciences (SHS). For nearly 40 years, the Festival has been helping the general public discover or rediscover filmographies, filmmaker-researchers, currents and trends in SHS through contemporary documentary films and ethnographic heritage, notably from the CNRS Images collection. Continuing the legacy of its founder, the Festival's aim is to showcase the diversity and originality of film genres and writing, as well as the wealth of research in the human sciences.

Each year, over 70 documentary films are programmed in international competition or in thematic sessions.

Eight prizes are also awarded to documentaries selected for the originality of their scientific theme and innovative approach: Nanook-Jean Rouch Grand Prize; Anthropology and Environment Prize; Bartók Prize; Intangible Cultural Heritage Prize; Mario Ruspoli Prize; First Film Prize; World in Views Prize in partnership with Inalco; Fleury Doc Prize.

The Festival continues throughout the year in France and abroad with "hors les murs" screenings (Festival Altérités in Caen; Regards Comparés at Inalco (Paris); Voir autrement le monde in Marseille, etc.) to reach out to new audiences. Every year, the Festival also organizes professional meetings and Master classes, with the aim of sharing the cinematographic experiences and practices of researchers and filmmakers with scientists, students and the general public.

Historically based at the Musée de l'Homme, the Festival is now hosted by the Musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac, with which it has forged an ambitious partnership. Through all these activities the Festival will welcome a wider audience, younger generations first and foremost, and paying particular attention to audiences prevented.

40th edition of the Festival - November 2021

The 40th edition of the Festival will be hosted at the Musée du Quai Branly - Jacques Chirac.

The selection Regards comparés : Au fil du Niger, portraits d'un fleuve, originally scheduled for 2020, will take place at Inalco from November 22 to 25, 2021.