beauty & a problem
01/25/2008
Another day in the life of Romanipen: http://www.johanlundberg.com/AdoLife/
I just saw these stunning photos ...and then you think about the fact that there are poor settlements like this all round the world, and we accept it as "normal." I admire the resilience of people who live there, and stay alive. I'm embarrassed to be part of the society that allows it to happen. Humans are bizarre creatures!
january in japan
01/11/2008
I'm over the moon to be in Japan helping open this film in cinemas. This is one of a few countries in the world that has no Romani population, and yet people are seriously interested - in the people as well as the music! What a pleasure to work with a distributor who reaches out to so many different communities - they had a photo competition for people to send in an image of "your own cultural heritage"; a tasting of wines from Spain, India, Macedonia and Romania; a concert; talks with women and human rights activists. The whole panoply. And people are leaving the cinema seats crying at what they feel in the people and music on screen - then they ask what they can do to find out more, or to help. thank you!
www.uplink.co.jp/gypsycaravan
This letter made me cry...
07/10/2007
Dear Ms. Dellal,
I would like to thank you for making this film. I am Romany, born in the US to Slovak parents. It was wonderful how the Macedonian woman (Esma, I think) spoke about her father’s experience during WW2 and her benefit concert for the Roma from Kosovo. Some politics without making a political film out of it – great job! I don’t agree with the critical remarks I have read about how not enough attention was paid to the plight of the Roma – why does every film made have to hit everyone over the head with our problems? – please make more films.
I grew up in the US and understand the importance of having positive role models in education, literature and film. My experience with this concept has primarily come from the perspective of African Americans in US society. Roma are facing the same issues in Europe that African Americans did 40-60 years ago in the US. Despite the fact that I am fully aware of this, I couldn’t help letting buckets of tears from rolling down my face as I was watching this. Real people, positive role models, acknowledgment and treatment on a fair and equal level (no condescension, no romanticism and no overbearing political overtones) of the individual subjects of this film --- I have never seen that done anywhere in public on such a scale before seeing this film. Thank you for treating my people like normal people and showing them as human individuals. When this film comes out on DVD I will buy a copy for my mother to see it. She needs to see in her old age that finally someone in this world is treating us fairly and acknowledging our value as human beings and contributors to society.
When I lived in Prague in the 90’s, I met a Romany man who didn’t think I was Romany – because I was a foreigner with a bit of an accent when speaking Czech and I had a university degree. When I told him I was a Roma and my mother comes form the same country, he remarked sincerely,” Then it can’t be true. We aren’t genetically inferior and incapable of intelligence.” My jaw dropped and I wanted to cry that someone could live for 40 years under such imposed restrictions, without realizing they were only a result of the messages to which he was constantly exposed in Czech society. Your film needs to be subtitled into Czech, Slovak and other languages, especially for those Roma who don’t speak Romany and may think as this man did. My people need to see your film. They need to see the greatest restriction is the one they accept by not realizing their potential. There is a world out there beyond their ghettos (shtetls, osady) that values their heritage.
I wish I could financially afford quit my job and make films with you. There is no greater value on earth for me than to do what you are doing. I didn’t expect it, but the tears are rolling down my face again as I think about what you have done and how happy it has made me.
Thank you.
Bill Bila
(Richmond, VA)
San Francisco premiere
07/09/2007
Back in my old home, where the journey really began with AMERICAN GYPSY years ago...
And happy to be collaborating for the premieres with Voice of Roma, Standard41's Raible, Belic brother Wonders, Gaeleee and many, many more...
Madonna 'n' Gogol 'n' Gypsies...
07/06/2007
Madonna's Live Earth concert-closer in London featured 2 guests from New York's own Gypsy punk band Gogol Bordello  I was driving across the Golden Gate Bridge to present GYPSY CARAVAN and i got an over-excited phone call from my sister in London: "Madonna's just introduced 'my two Romani Gypsy friends on guitar and violin' ... yeah... scream... shock... happy laughter...." Eugene Hutz & Sergey Ryabtsev even had Madonna sing Romani language llyrics for part of La Isla Bonita. But Baxt to all!
Tom Merino opens film in Pasadena
07/05/2007
At the opening screening in Pasadena today, audience members met Tom Merino - a Romani filmmaker based in Los Angeles. The moments that make me feel proudest of this film are when other people take ownership of it. Tom hadn't seen the film before so I smiled at the 8 minute phone message and a blow-by-blow account of the questions and of how he pointed some things out to the audience:
- notice how Esma says that "we never started any wars"
- notice that the film is dedicated to the Decade of Roma Inclusion, because Roma need to be included in the societies where they live
- notice that the singing is beautiful, but it's not just song and dance.
Thanks Tom!
(send me a photo to add in here)
Goodbye Jimmy Marks
06/26/2007
Today, June 27th 2007, I honour the life of Jimmy Marks. He was a man who had the courage to sing with meaning.
Jimmy had been struggling this year with heart problems and diabetes. And he spent at least a decade of his life locked in a very long struggle against the government of his hometown, Spokane, Washington. It was a battle that some people felt was a symbol of Roma standing up against a prejudiced system. He also knew that many people disagreed with his claims, his methods and his madness. He knew that he was a complicated character in a complicated situation fighting a controversial battle.
I spent a long time with Jimmy Marks during the making of my feature documentary AMERICAN GYPSY, in which he featured. If he had his choice, I think he would like to be remembered for the moments when he said he felt like David fighting Goliath.
Last week Jimmy went to have dental surgery. He suffered a cardiac arrest at the dental office. Jimmy never regained consciousness and died this morning.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oLt7-3XpSE
--
post script:
When I came back to my office after traveling, I found that Jimmy had left me a voicemail shortly before his death. He began by saying, "21 years yesterday. 21 long years." He was referring of course to the day when police raided his family home in June 1986. The raid and ensuing legal battles had consumed Jimmy's life since then. His moods swung up and down - like an elevator, he said. The last words on his phone message were, "I'm down again. The elevator is down. Down to the carpet."
My thoughts and love go out to his family and all that he loved and lived for.
Lyon - Le Peuple Tsigane
06/18/2007
Lyon. 2nd biggest city in France. It's raining cats and dogs. Is there such a thing as chance? Directly across the street from the cinema is the opening of an exhibition "Le Peuple Tsigane" - it's in Klaus Barby's old headquarters which has become a museum center of memory. Old documents show Tsiganes being deported. Prison camps in France with separate quarters for Jews and Gypsies. Modern photographs of Auschwitz survivors - some of them have recorded oral histories. After the Lyon screening, one boy waits till everyone's left before he talks to me. His father is Manouche, he says, and he's always thought that the only thing of note about that was music. He loves and lives for music. But he never wanted to push open the door a little further and learn more about his roots. Somehow, he says the film has given him pride, and now he's enthusiastic about exploring and learning more about his people.
He's going to push open that door - with pride, not fear.
indiewire - good opening box office
06/18/2007
Fingers crossed! ...a nice opening weekend box office write-up from Indiewire:
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INDIEWIRE -- Hope for theatrical success for all types of non-fiction films, controversial or not, received a boost from the impressive $13,477 launch of Shadow Distribution's concert film "Gypsy Caravan" which jammed audiences on two New York screens, the Angelika and the Lincoln Plaza. Boasting camerawork by veteran filmmaker Albert Maysles and a cameo appearance by Johnny Depp, "Gypsy Caravan" follows various Gypsy bands, including Fanfare Ciocarlia and Taraf De Haidouks, as they tour Europe, India and the U.S. as part of their popular Gypsy Caravan concert tour.
For Ken Eisen, President, Waterville Maine-based Shadow Distribution, "Gypsy Caravan," a top earner among the weekend's new art-house releases, has the look of a classic documentary hit. "Right now, we have a boom or bust mentality; people only remembering what has happened in the last five minutes," says Eisen. "The huge successes of "Fahrenheit 9/11" and "An Inconvenient Truth" have raised the base for docs. But a film like "March of the Penguins," something that grosses $35 million or more, is an aberration and the number of documentaries capable of reaching that wide of an audience are still limited.
"A successful film in the art market is one that can reach a limited but still wide audience, one that will appeal to the general art house viewer if not the multiplex crowd. Thirteen years ago we released "Latcho Drom" and it earned more than $1 million and played in Berkeley for a year. "Gypsy Caravan is a film like that, a film that appeals to more than just Gypsy music fans."
"Gypsy Caravan" expands to Los Angeles and Washington D.C. on June 29, multiple venues in San Francisco on July 6 and more cities throughout the summer.
Paris - Nantes
06/17/2007
After about 15 interviews in the space of 3 hours, we had a whirlwind visit to Nantes to screen the film to a very enthusiastic audience on late Monday night at the family-run arthouse Clochard cinema. Plenty of good questions and an interesting moment of audience members debating aloud the different political implications of the words "Gitan" "Tsigane" "Rom" "Sinti" "Manouche" "Gens de Voyage"...
Next day is the Paris avant-premiere. My distributor tells me that a taxi will be much slower than his bike, so i end up on the back of a Vespa wearing a long dress and the highest heels I've ever owned... swerving towards the 7 Parnassiens. And the best thing is that people have actually come to see the film! The ad is on the front of Pariscope & a woman named Cristina has been spreading the film's flyers through all flamenco events and many Romani hang out places. It's worked --- fingers crossed it keeps on going!
NY premiere
06/14/2007
It's been SIX years since this film began to be made.... what better place to launch than the Angelika!
Romanian nights..
06/05/2007
Meanwhile, back in a square in Romania.... Fanfare Ciocarlia and Esma Redzepova just let loose to a dancing square of film festival rabble rousers, and townspeople who couldn’t ignore decibels of loud brass in the center of Sibiu (a city proud to be cultural capital of Europe this year). And the whisper was that this is the first time that the musicians of Fanfare Ciocarlia have played in Romania without feeling that they were scared of the crowd - scared of the ever prevalent Gypsy prejudice. In fact, last year was their first official Romanian concert ever, but they were terrified.... Then they did another show but they weren't comfortable until they knew they would have guest performers on stage with them... And tonight, after a screening of our film, Fanfare played a fantastic concert! As one of their managers put it, they broke the ice and had a good time for the first time on stage in their home country. Definitely cause for celebration! I wonder if racism is the most multicultural and durable commodity on this planet... we've all got it and it sticks around for a bloody long time. Oops, i somehow forgot to mention that my film played on a huge outdoor screen in the same square last night - to incredibly fine reception. Thanks Transilvania.
London shows - wow!
05/31/2007
I'm just rounding off a couple of days of dancing till the wee hours -- wednesday was with Fanfare Ciocarlia, Esma and their "all star" band. I don't think i've ever seen such a good concert anywhere. Everyone danced! all the way into the 3rd tier of the gods... and then we went back to the hotel with managers and musicians, one of them plugged an mp3 phone into some mini-speakers, the desk staff were kind enough to turn a blind eye, and we danced again till 4am. Ouch :-) Then tonight, Taraf tore up the place! ...and then we smiled and danced and according to this photo, Pashalan and Ionica grabbed me for a quick hug too :-) This was all part of London's Barbican festival celebrating a thousand years of Romani music - pulling audiences for a couple of years now. With Gogol Bordello too. And Balkan beatbox in London just a few days earlier. It was small for the film, but lovely to show it to my London friends and my father for the first time.
A moment backstage with Oprica of Fanfare Ciocarlia:
Krakow - Vania de Gila-Kochanowski (1906-2007)
05/28/2007
Our film will soon be playing in the Krakow Film Festival and I’d like to make a special tribute to an impressive Romani man who was born in that city in 1906 and whose life’s achievements take my breath away. Jan Kochanowski (aka Vania de Gila) died on May 18, leaving behind one son who is a General in the French Air Force and another son who is a choreographer of the National ballet of Gabon. I can’t do justice to the summary I just read of this man’s life in an obituary (LINK) but Vania began life with his mother’s nomadic Latvian clan wandering from Poland to Biolerussia until age 9. His father died in the military defending Smolensk in 1942. Vania lost half of his family in WW2, he escaped twice himself and joined the Resistance. Eventually settling in France, Vania became a scholar, earned two PhD’s and wrote important books on sociology, anthropology, linguistics and Roma. He founded Romani activist societies and travelled the world representing his people from Paris to Delhi to UNESCO (bringing scholarship and dancing to most gatherings).
Korea -> Seattle -> Around the World in 80 Festivalsss
05/25/2007
ah ha, we've just figured out how to get the blog up again! So here's a snippet of festival catch-up: After about 6 months of hopping about the planet like a frog -or I hope like something else more elegant that jumps a lot - I ended up this month in Jeonju, Korea. I never could've guessed that Koreans would feel such a strong bond to Gypsies! Audience members came back to see the film twice in 2 days. A bona fide Korean movie star asked if he could introduce the film and talked about his people's ability to empathize with a history that contains great suffering... and the crowning glory was that we won a fine Audience Award! Bibimbop in Jeonju is also an award of its very own - so many varieties of it, so many flavors, a universal yum. Seattle is about the most friendly and clean place I've ever spent time (albeit just a couple of days). Don't skip the public library by mister Koolhaus! Of course the crowning glory is the festival itself, which must be the longest running festival on the planet - 3 weeks! (many film fests are only 3 days). Audiences are amazing too - a standing ovation never hurt anyone. And when i told the audience that I'd be seeing the musicians in a few days and would tell them about the great response - the audience whooped and cheered for them again.
other recent festival stops: Budapest, Amsterdam, Palm Springs, San Francisco, Prague, Nashville, Belgium....
happy, but dog tired (could sleep anywhere - a la standard41)
Roma Worldwide News Update - June 21, 2006
06/27/2006
Argentina
- New Roma radio program called “Pacto con Dios” on air every Tuesday from 9 to 10PM and Sundays from 2 to 4PM; www.radiomaranata.net
Belgium
- On June 1, 2006 European Parliament adopted the Resolution on the Situation of Roma Women in the European Union; Roma women are among the most threatened groups in Europe, especially in the ten new Member States and the accession candidate countries
- On June 6, 2006 there was a public hearing at the European Parliament regarding anti-Gypsyism in the media
Bulgaria
- Romani Baht Foundation has changed its program priorities and structure to reflect Bulgaria's status as a pre-European Union accession country
Hungary
- Appelate court upheld the decision to acquit at retrial two Roma men who were wrongfully convicted of murder
Macedonia
- European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg finds Macedonia Roma police brutality case admissible
Russia
- European Roma Rights Center sent a letter of concern about anti-Roma hate speech to the Editor-in-Chief of the Russian daily paper Budni
- British film director Hannah Collins and her Russian Romani co-writer and producer, Edouard Chiline, finished shooting their film “Current History” based on everyday life in Novgorod, Russian Federation. The film focuses on the relationship of Romani and non-Roma in the village.
UK
- Commission for Racial Equality released a report that reveals a “culture of oversight” has made it difficult to provide adequate services for Roma and Irish Travelers
USA
- Helsinki Commission called upon President Putin and elected officials to condemn the recent surge of ethnically and racially motivated hate crimes in Russia that included violence against Roma
- Helsinki Commission is holding a briefing in Washington DC on June 16th regarding the situation of Roma in Europe
- May 20th marked the CALIFORNIA HERDELJEZI FESTIVAL 2006, a benefit to help the Roma of Kosovo
General Roma Media
- Roma News and related Forum on a website of the International Debate Education Association (IDEA). Read updates on http://idw.idebate.org/roma
- Discuss issues according to topic on http://www.idebate.org/discussion/view_forum.php?id=54
Cannes market sales...
05/30/2006
WHEN THE ROAD BENDS... just screened at the Cannes market.
It has brand new distributors in France (Pretty Pictures) and in Japan (AMG).
Roma Worldwide News summary - May 20, 2006
05/19/2006
Argentina
- New Romani radio program announced
Hungary
- Two Roma men convicted of murder have been acquitted
- June 6-7th there will be a conference in Budapest called “The European Union and the Roma”
Austria
- (Vienna) – European Monitoring Center for Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC) has released a report that finds that education systems throughout Europe are failing Roma students; Roma are subjects of systemic discrimination and exclusion from education.
Romania
- The National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI) is conducting a political leadership training series for 25 emerging Roma leaders through its Roma Political Participation Program in Romania. NDI is now recruiting participants for the program.
Romania & Bulgaria
- Both countries are waiting for the European Commission to finalize a report of their EU accession dates (report out May 16)
France
- 18 Romani children who were forced to go to segregated schools in the Czech Republic filed their final appeal today before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
- European Court of Human Rights has declared admissible the application of Mr. Pejrusan Jasar against Macedonia in a torture case (this is the 1st time this has ever happened!)
Germany
- On May 16th there was a remembrance ceremony to commemorate the first deportation of the Roma and Sinti into Nazi concentration camps
USA
- 10th Annual California Herdeljezi Festival 2006 on May 20th - Roma festival that supports the Roma of Kosovo
Europe (General)
- Council of Europe recently started the implementation of a third joint Council of Europe/European Commission project called"Equal Rights and Treatment for Roma in SEE." It will last two years and will be implemented in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, and Macedonia. It will raise awareness of Roma issues and improve Roma participation in social and public spheres.
Internet
- The World Bank’s Roma website has launched a publications page for past World Bank publications about Roma:
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