14 mins., b&w, silent – French titles and intertitles
Production : Agence economique des territories africaines.
Source : CNC-Bnf
This film was made by René Bugniet, the official cinematographer of the French colony of Cameroon and consists of a series of shots of the many different house styles across the colony, showing how they vary according to the ethnic group and region.
It is not dated but the final sequence shows the Togo-Cameroon pavilion at the International Colonial Exhibition of 1931 in Paris, so it seems very likely that the film was completed specifically for that exhibition
An intertitle explains that the Togo-Cameroon paviliion was inspired by Bamiléké architecture. There are various exterior shots of the pavilion with citizens walking about, but the film never actually goes inside. In the final sequence, the film cuts from carvings on the poles of pavilion to similar carvings in situ in Cameroon.
[An interesting footnote is that the Togo-Cameroon pavilion is only pavilion that still survives from the Colonial Exhibition, though today it is a Buddhist temple.]