NY Gypsy FF: Gypsy Caravan

Life on the road is a fact of life for musicians of all genres. When the World Music Institute put together the Gypsy Caravan Tour of “five bands from four countries speaking nine languages” it surely posed some logistical challenges. However, as documented in Jasmine Dellal’s documentary, Gypsy Caravan: When the Road Bends (trailer here), the resulting headaches apparently were confined to the producers and promoters, with a spirit of camaraderie prevailing among the musicians.

Over the course of their American tour, the Caravan ensembles learned to mix their diverse styles from three European countries and the original Roma homeland, India, into a new fusion of Gypsy music. Having been officially awarded the title: “Queen of Gypsy Music,” Macedonian Esma Redzepova was arguably the senior member of the tour. She was joined by the Romanian groups, Fanfare Ciocarlia, a brass band with a hint of klezmer, and Taraf de Haïdouks (Band of Brigands), a somewhat jazz-influenced string and accordion band, then led by the distinguished violinist Nicolae Neascu. With Antonio El Pipa’s Ensemble, Caravan reminds the audience of flamenco music’s Rom roots. As the tour progresses, Maharaja joined their Andalusian counterparts for some distinctive Spanish-Indian flamenco—world music indeed.

If there was any backstage drama, Dellal declined to show it. Instead, she focuses on the music, which what the tour was all about anyway. There are some great sequences, including vintage groovy 1960’s television footage of Redzepova. Appearing in the film as a charming elderly man, greatly enjoying his late-in-life popularity, Neascu sadly passed away shortly after returning from the Caravan tour. Probably the most emotional scenes in Caravan come during his memorial.

In filming Caravan, Dellal attained the services of both an aspiring documentarian and an acclaimed master. George Eli whose debut film Searching for the 4th Nail previewed at this year’s NY Gypsy FF, provided translation services and on-screen commentary. Remarkably, Dellal’s primary cinematographer was the celebrated Albert Maysles of Grey Gardens, Salesman, and Gimme Shelter fame.

Caravan does indeed look and sound great. Having completed the festival circuit and a theatrical run, it bows on DVD late next month. Its NY Gypsy FF return engagement made for an entertaining conclusion to the spirited festival last night. Hopefully, the NY Gypsy FF is not really over for the year, as organizers are hoping to take the show on the road, which would certainly be appropriate.

NY Gypsy FF: World Survey

The Roma and Sinti did not just wake up one morning and decide to be nomadic. Historically, they have often been given violent incentive to move along by the local powers that be. As a result, a Gypsy Diaspora stretches around the world. Various documentaries screening at the NY Gypsy FF survey the varying situations for Romani people around the world.

Perhaps the grimmest conditions were recorded in Kosovo by Katalin Bársony’s Trapped. Despite being the third largest ethnic group, Roma were the only Kosovar population not represented during the so-called peace talks. A large segment of that community now lives in lead contaminated refugee camps.

Bob Entrop’s The White Whale, follows Lalla Weiss, an international representative of the Roma as she represents her people at conferences and on fact-finding missions. We also hear some good music when she attends a festival commemorating the sixtieth anniversary of Django Reinhardt’s death. Happily she finds the Czech Republic has made marked improvements in the living conditions and education of Czech Roma (though not so much in terms of employment). However, Sterile Dreams, Jehan Harney’s expose of sterilizations performed on Roma women without adequate consent on their part, dampens one’s optimism.

In Searching for the 4th Nail (trailer here) American Romani filmmaker George Eli turns his camera both outward and inward, asking not just what it means to be an American Gypsy, but Roma in general. The title refers to the legendary the fourth nail of the crucifixion, which as the story goes, was stolen by a Gypsy blacksmith. In gratitude, God granted his descendents the right to steal. Eli seems to see this Gypsy creation myth as a double-edged sword, simultaneously giving them a sense of mystical identity, but also facilitating low expectations of rootless lives lived in the margins of society.

Not everyone in Eli’s family was thrilled with the project. The post-screening consensus was that his sons Alex and Christopher stole the show. His wife however, is notably absent. It is his sons’ questions which initiates Eli’s search for answers, at one point leading father and sons to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. While Eli does not deny the existence of anti-Roma prejudice, he is also critical of some Roma preconceptions, particular the notion that education is only for the Gadjie (non-Roma). That lends a great deal of nuance to the film.

The Elis, father and sons, exhibit consistently likeable on-screen personalities. As a filmmaker, Eli keeps the Nail moving a healthy pace and deftly addresses some serious issues without getting overwhelmed by their weightiness. Screened in a sneak preview, Nail looks to be good to go for the festival circuit. It could well serve as an accessible introduction for many people to the issues addressed by a number of the films in the festival.

NY Gypsy FF: Documenting the Holocaust

For a host of frightening ideological reasons, many individuals, including current heads of state, persist in outright denying the Holocaust, or at least minimizing its extent. Perhaps only the murder of Jehovah’s Witnesses during the Holocaust is less readily acknowledged than that of European Roma and Sinti populations, but that is a distinction hardly worth making. All should be remembered, which is why this year the NY Gypsy Film Festival focuses special attention on the Roma/Sinti Holocaust experience with several documentaries.

Alexandra Isles’s Porraimos takes its name from the Romany word for “devouring,” which has become their equivalent term for “Shoah.” It provides an informative overview of the period from 1938 to 1945, during which time at least 600,000 Roma and Sinti individuals were murdered by the National Socialists. Isles emphasizes the twisted interest in eugenics shared by Menegele and his protégés, which resulted in many senselessly cruel experiments. The evil doctor evidently had a particular obsession with the Romany people, despite as Isles points out, his own dark somewhat Roma looking features.

Despite the horrors they witnessed, two of the interview subjects in Porraimos would later make contributions to humanity through the arts. Karl Stojka, born into an artistic Roman Catholic Roma family, survived Auschwitz to document his experiences on his canvass. Dina Gottliebova, later a Disney animator, speaks of surviving through her artistic skills, including painting Roma portraits as part of Mengele’s bizarre research.

Several related films screening at the festival are more specific in scope, like Hidden Sorrows, which concentrates on the Romanian Roma, giving special attention the survivors’ current living conditions. With little fanfare, the German government and a Swiss banking consortium announced a narrow window for Romanian Roma to claim, not reparations, but humanitarian assistance. Director Michelle Kelso documents her efforts to find survivors and help them prove their eligibility for the funds. The figures involved were $770 from the Swiss and $500 from the Germans for years of slave labor in the Transistria concentration camps. The only Swiss disbursements eventually approved would in fact go to the Roma she worked with.

It is disturbing how many wish to obscure or even deny the events that took place in Transistria and elsewhere in Europe during the Holocaust. One hopes more festivals will program these documentaries, many of which, like Sorrows, are making their American premiere at the NY Gypsy Film Festival.

NY Gypsy FF: Guca

“Music and sport make a nation” says a fan at the Guča trumpet festival. Those who excel in each are uniquely capable of making emotional connections with scores of people they will never meet. Once a year, there are a whole lot of connections made at the Serbian music festival, as recorded in Milijov Ilic’s documentary, Guča: the Serbian Woodstock, an Untold Story (trailer here), screening as part of the New York Gypsy Film Festival.

The music of the Guča festival is the traditional brass band music of western Serbia and the more Roma influenced Sevdah music from the Southern and Eastern provinces (as well as Bosnia and Herzegovina). With the Sevdah music considered freer and more spontaneous than the western Serbian style, one of member of the festival jury likens the differences between the two forms to the distinction between Dixieland and genuine New Orleans style jazz.

Although not jazz at all, the music of Guča should be readily accessible to jazz ears, particularly those who follow the New Orleans brass band scene or frequently hear Slavic Soul Party at Barbès. Again like jazz, there seem to be definite notions of authenticity regarding the music. An ethnomusicologist who serves as the film’s expert commentator clearly favors the most traditional bands and is critical of past champion Boban Marković for diluting his music with commercial elements.

Sports comparisons are particularly apt for Guča, because this is not just an exhibition, but most certainly a competition. The Golden Trumpet audience award, the jury’s First Trumpet award, and several other prizes are at stake. As documented by Ilic, it seemed the bands of the 2005 festival are near evenly matched, making it difficult to forecast a winner.

More than anything, Guča looks like a heck of a party. The usually sleepy rural Serbian town attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors, including Miles Davis one year, to dig those crazy sidewise looking Dragačevo trumpet. Ilic captures that festival spirit, filming revelers passed out on park benches and the hoods of cars. Clearly, the music and carnival atmosphere has a restorative effect on those in the troubled country who attend.

While actors are allowed to occasionally phone one in for a pay check, whenever musicians and athletes take the stage, they are expected to perform at the peak of the abilities. In Guča, everyone seems well satisfied that indeed happened. It screens again Tuesday night at the NY Gypsy FF, which has extended its run through Wednesday the 16th.

NY Gypsy FF: Musicians for Life

Call it the underdog festival. Now in its second year, the New York Gypsy Film Festival might be the only festival in the City not sponsored by Stella Artois, but that’s OK by them. They say they want to keep things real.

Screening down at the Mehanata Bulgarian Bar on the lower eastside, the NY Gypsy FF has a very relaxed vibe, but the films are serious fare indeed. Programming entirely documentaries, this year’s special focus falls on the Sinti/Roma Holocaust experience. As the organizers point out, the organized mass murder of Europe’s Sinti and Roma has consistently been denied, minimized, ignored, and forgotten. To start rectifying this, they are screening films like Alexandra Isles’ Porraimos (review to come) which shine a light on these horrific events.

In a lighter vein, music has traditionally been a rare aspect of Sinti/Roma life celebrated by an often hostile outside world, so naturally there are several music-related documentaries also screening. Of course, few musicians of any background could match the reputation of Gypsy jazz legend Django Reinhardt, and his spirit clearly still has an influence on the artists featured in Bob Entrop’s Musicians for Life.

Entrop was accepted and befriended by the Roma and Sinti, simultaneously filming footage for what would become five documentaries. In Musician, he follows several artists playing Reinhart-inspired Hot Club style jazz, as well as even more traditional forms of Gypsy music. Along the way, he dispels many Gypsy stereotypes. The musicians we see are professionals, able to sustain a respectable working middle-class lifestyle. They simply choose do so living in their caravan community. Although some do not read music, many do, including Roger Moreno, who not only reads, but composes extended classical pieces using the latest computer software.

While Musicians is largely an upbeat musical documentary, the Holocaust is addressed through Moreno’s composition, a requiem for those murdered at Auschwitz. Moreno confides that after a fast start, his writing was thrown off track by the emotional impact of a visit to the Polish concentration camp, intended to serve as inspiration.

Clearly, Entrop’s subjects trusted him enough to frankly discuss some delicate topics. They were also relaxed enough to casually jam together while he filmed, providing some of the film’s best musical sequences on the spur of the moment. At one point, a musician explains there is no Sinti word for freedom because historically the Sinti have only known freedom. Although he was addressing a different issue, it does help explain why jazz and traditional Gypsy music proved so compatible when wed together.

Musicians is a thoughtful, entertaining documentary. The next Entrop documentary to screen at this year’s NY Gypsy FF will be No Place of Their Own tomorrow night. The festival runs through Tuesday, so consider visiting one night after work.