Maskaradak

JEAN-DOMINIQUE LAJOUX
(Saint-Dié-des-Vosges, 1931)

Documentary filmed in 1968 in the Basque towns of Pagol and Licq-Atherey, as part of a study into Carnival festivities and their famous masquerades.  The film presents different dance and popular theatre scenes featuring a group of masked actors. When the masked dance arrives in the village, it finds a barricade and a cross, and then the dancers must show off their art.  We witness dance scenes interspersed with other comical scenes from Carnival theatre. They are all divided into chapters in an excellent work of character categorization by the filmmaker and anthropologist, Jean Dominique Lajoux. A film sponsored and protected by UNESCO.

Anthropologist, photographer and filmmaker. He was a researcher at the CNRS (National Centre for Scientific Research). He used photography and film from an ethnographic perspective to carry out documentary tasks in places such as  Indochina, Sahara or Polynesia. His first research took place in Aubrac, a region of the French Massif Central which he used as a base to locate a dozen films from 1964. He used his camera to record the festivities in the villages of diverse countries. In 1973, he joined the CNRS to set up his  audiovisual department. In 1991, he defended a thesis on the working hours and holidays in contemporary Europe.

Filmography:

• Longue marche en pays Moï (1956)
• Tissage Sedang (1956)
• Potier Sedang (1956)
• Habemus Papam (1959)
• Tassili n'Ajjer (1962)
• Au pied du sable (1962)
• Le Tahiti des Tahitiens (1963)
• Robert le Polynésien (1963)
• Firmin l'Homme des Burons (1966)
• Fléaux en cadente (1966)
• Conte du bouc d'Aunac (1966)
• Le Forgeron des Hermaux (1967)
• Les Travaux et les jours (1967)
• Foires d'Aubrac (1967)
• Foires d'Aubrac (1967)
• Les travaux et les jours - fêtes calendaires dans le Chatillonnais (1968)
• Musique persone (1968)
• Cerclage de roue (1968)
• Les Fajoux (1971)
• Le Joug (1971)
• Charbon de Bois (1971)
• Jeanne de Flandre (1972)
• L'Aubrac (1973)
• La Main, l'outil, le travail (1973)
• La Fête du milieu de l'été (1973)
• Vievola, chœurs et danses du col de Tende (1974)
• V'là Mardi-Gras (1975)
• C'est moi quand même- René Zazzo (1976)
• l'Image qui devient un reflet- René Zazzo (1977)
• Un autre pas comme les autres- René Zazzo (1977)
• Le Bacuber (1978)
• Bourrées d'Aubrac (1979)
• L'Ours ou l'homme sauvage (1979)
• Les Pailhasses (1980)
• Mascaradak (1980)
• Les Diablos (1983)
• Le Charbon de bois (1984)
• Besta Berria - fête-dieu en pays basque (1985)
• Terre, Or et Azur, la céramique à reflets métalliques (1987)
• l'Art des cavernes - André Leroi-Gourhan (1987)
• Le Cinéma sans Lumière (1995)
• Préambule au cinématographe (1995)
• Pas à pas-la véritable histoire de la naissance du cinéma (2010)