I, a negro - Moi, un noir (Jean Rouch, 1958)
First time watching a Jean Rouch film, the immediate thought is that this is really a sign of new times of social and political awareness in the cinema that was made by First World authors. Contrarily to the merely touristic view of previous ethnographic cinema, Rouch's work immediately puts itself in a position of political activism through the characters. The movie is a stance against cultural colonialism, lack of prospects for immigrants and war veterans and has some strong and resonating antiauthoritarian themes. It displays local cultural manifestations with an amount of respect beyond the condescending and degrading approach that was common before.
But it's not without its issues; particularly the ethnofictional approach, while certainly very innovative and in the end one of the main inspirations behind not only the French New Wave movement but an entire shift in the way film as a whole could be conceived and approached, also tends to manipulate the images to fit a preestablished narrative, set by Rouch himself. Which could be considered an instrumentalization of the character and society it depicts, with good intent in mind, no doubt, but also ultimately compromising the sincerity of the images.
Anyway, it was a great watch and it really makes you think about the implications of viewing film and specifically ethnography through the film lens. It is also a very important and influential work that predates and explains a lot of the later avant-garde film movements.