Alphonse "Bois Sec" Ardoin

Shot on location in rural Southwestern Louisiana, Zydeco combines cinema verite style footage, interviews and musical performance to present a colorful, joyful portrait of the zydeco musicians in their culture. Featuring Dolon Carriere, Armand Ardoin, and Alphonse "Bois Sec" Ardoin. A film by Nicholas R. Spitzer. Color, 57 minutes.

Feature-length documentary filmed in three locations as far apart as possible: Louisiana, Acadia and Quebec, but where Le reel du pendu is played – a musical piece performed on the violin, harmonica and guitar or the accordion for over two hundred years. Through this improvised music of a death row inmate, the spectator is invited to discover for himself “the sound of the French in America”.

Dedans le Sud de la Louisiane, shot in 1972, may very well be the best documentary on Louisiana’s French music and culture ever produced. Bruneau obviously fell in love with the French-speaking people of South Louisiana and their world, and that love is apparent in every frame of this film.