Gypsy Caravan: On the Road in Hungary

one year ago I was touring Romania with my film gypsy caravan now I'm on the road again this time I plan to show the documentary all around Hungary and luckily I'm not alone this is Ella who's running the whole show hi I'm Sophie ants to them I am John and I'm just helping out I'm jasmine and I'm excited because this is our first evening in Budapest and we're about to go round hungry for the next two months trying to get people to talk about so many issues Roma integration is a burning political issue here in Hungary's magnificent Parliament the hardline Yup'ik party now has 47 seats it was the seventh Roma death in Hungary in a year and the third fatal shooting targeting the Roma community in the past five months the far-right drobik parties and hold protests against Roma insisting they are criminals to use my documentary to challenge stereotypes about Roma or gypsies there were university students from countries where there are large noticeable Roma populations and they just flat-out said these people are like cockroaches they're like rats you have to treat them the same way exterminate them so we'd launched an online fundraising campaign the situation for Roma or gypsies is really bad right now brought to my attention that there's a lot of discrimination but the first blog comment was totally racist then others wrote back to defend Rama John was so shocked by all the antigypsyism that he helped us online and then on the road my film that we're showing is about Roman II musicians on an American concept about their roots their struggles and the joy and power of their music there we go we're going to the European Youth Center act on him anywhere and I saw that other people know about him this screening for international young activists was a nice beginning their projector actually worked and I was moved by orisons that I'd never seen before they spontaneously stood up with hands on hard for the Romani anthem on-screen calls very language from any English understandable I'm very proud to be do you see anything every year the next day alongside the Danube we paid our respects at a memorial ceremony for the Roman II Holocaust or Paramus here we spoke with lots of activists and media and the famous and flamboyant Romani artist Omar without evaluating then we set off from Budapest to project the film in more than 50 locations all around Hungary in theory all venues were ready to show our film the reality was different no projectors suddenly we had to buy one bang goes our emergency budget they welcomed us to stay overnight in sleeping bags which we quickly adapted as window covers for our cinema after this screening we talked to villagers then Laszlo the community centre organizer was proud to show us his own YouTube videos of local Roma next we headed to our shores also attacks on Roma and racist tension have been reported here so we'd arranged to meet a Romani representative there were lots of mothers and kids in the neighborhood so we spoke to them instead I forgot my gloves away we went to talk with the mayor about remind her town she welcomed us but her words suggested that Rome are inferior and incapable of redemption yet she seems to like the idea of presenting our film with a discussion then we encountered a problem the best would be to do it in the Roman district so that people can feel comfortable there themselves in God is the ocean because she has one he has been a major before agreeing to a screening in the white part of town we went to find the local Roma government representatives these leadership positions are official some say that it's a way for the Hungarians to give Roma token positions which hold more social status than actual power other state that it's a gradual way for Roma to take control of their own destiny oh yeah he says it for them today I'll say that fighting with the sheriff is talking about you we discussed the local situation and they spoke to a Romina friend of mine my Laurie they were all happy about a minority like Obama actually becoming president many weeks later after the mayor rescheduled three times we had a screening and debate in the mayor's chosen venue nearly all the roam across town to priests to the Roma representatives it was the mayor and her guess who never showed up how many teachers how many students roughly 300 students this school's founders are very successful at adapting education messages for minorities around the world in fact they're now building a new school and even local non-roma want to attend most students come from this community it has typical problems like one water pump for a thousand people bad garbage collection and sky-high unemployment which is one thousand I see five five people have normal season over 100 euro per month from one family only one people they could work here before but now you can see the village is so deep our next town is shattered oh hey where we begin with an evening at the local folk dance school and as students do their own dance to thank us for the screen early the next morning we're in prison this is the first of dozens of screenings we've scheduled in Penitentiary's around Hungary national prison administrators have agreed to show it on prison cable and to arrange some DVD screenings after the film some prisoners were allowed to talk with us but the conversation turned fast toward over representation of roma in hungarian the next stop is a crime scene in november 2008 two men hid in a cornfield and threw Molotov cocktails at this tiny village they shot a young mother and father standing in their doorway while the children and parents watched helplessly from inside doesn't leave already Lockwood was I wore one MTBs FST haddock or he cuz I could design better get back yeah our moral support was clearly welcomed by this still disturbed community and they asked us to arrange a screening but mostly they talked about needing employment and wanting to cut down the clone field so killers can't hide there next we drove back to Budapest for some meetings and our friend shot joined to help on the next leg of our trip this was our smallest screening so far but it turned out to be very emotional and powerful would you never you speak but the you never know when that evening we stayed at they organized us house and she told us about her role in Roma government and her family and career does that mean you be worth on force pass and we ate a lot Roma work in many more careers than most people realize on the way to pitch we visited an internationally recognized artists meet their father mama to bail out a lot easy shame at that are the monkey back there while we're traveling around Hungary our film is also showing at various festivals this media wave festival links several villages around page with a focus on performance literature and cultural openness at the festival QA one audience member was so passionate about the need for pro Roma voices in hungry tomash set up some extra screenings for us later in our trip that evening in page we went to a concert by gypsy Symphony Orchestra and met its manager who also runs radio see a national Roma radio station he shared his opinion about racism in Hungary towards Roma first me me left me other Emilia Teeter I don't keep member cincy vodka stop Osmund our geomagnetic attentive he's widely respected yet he acknowledged lots of his audience are happy to hear chipsy music but don't even want to think about real gypsies but also gesture oh we need the projector again what a good thing we built the deck after the screening the discussion turned faster the problem of unemployment and the next generation we visited her highly-regarded Gandhi school to show the film and talk to the teachers and students there's no second it is really the director dr. Jeremy after Michigan I get to see um whilst here in the university town of Page we also had good screenings at a few other schools and institutions our next venue didn't go as smoothly after a long bus ride we arrived only to be told that the film was canceled due to rain that scheduled months in advance and it's not outdoors but they rescheduled and even threw an after-party as we went on to tour southern Hungary we got local help tomash had seen a film at an earlier festival became a major supporter and organised a lot of extra screening we showed our movie at the women's penitentiary in Colusa a town famous for paprika then cross the danube and drove to poach which is home to Hungary's only nuclear power plant one of our good screenings and debates them at sex our movie head - electric American well to Newark novella is more negative than the movement of the hood after 10 more screenings we got closer to Budapest again and took part in the air tech art festival means heard the famous Roma singer and rights activist was performing there and that evening we had a small show at the home of one of the local intelligentsia and then it was back on a train to Budapest to complete arrangements for a big screening and show at the Hungarian Roma Parliament on international Roma day we also visited a school in the famous 8th district where after our movie the kids did their own song and dance in edilene only welcomed at this school where children from different backgrounds can study from kindergarten through to professional training you what I said that never get any mad wanna go in there you're in a blue usually without yellow as we continued more screenings were added others were cancelled for one show someone arranged to borrow chairs from the local school and after long discussions with the web organization telly has they arranged to show our film through internet outlets all across Hungary but this school for the disadvantaged roma and non-roma occurred what we kept hearing about racism and the reluctance to even acknowledge it this teacher had decided to use our phone to teach and prompt debate in his classes on Romani traditions in seg at one of Hungary's largest cities we wrapped up with a wide variety of screenings at this Youth Centre the discussion was led by associate religious teacher in the nearby Moodle a town famous for its onions we had the last projection of our documentary in front of a fantastic and proud audience I love their hands own puppets for Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew all the figures are Roma truly I had read [ __ ] in the media we can't hear anything just bad things Steve and the laughs a detective we have bad Hungarian people as as bad but I met a lot of very friendly love the Gypsy you know MA from this time I think I will have a better relationship with coma

Channel: GypsyCaravanMovie

Views: 424,420

Rating: 3.7782328 out of 5

Keywords: On The Road, Hungary, Caravan, Jasmine, Dellal

Id: 8Z7CuUWo9sg

Length: 20min 0sec (1200 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 16 2011