Text
One-Sheet Poster
THE ART OF SURVIVING
(...)
In Germany many Roma live as refugees. But only two-thirds of
them are on sufferance, they have to face alien's deportation. They are
not allowed to work, they receive only 70 % of the welfare entitlement
and they have no right to receive child or education benefits. Not only
materially their live is difficult: until today Roma are faced with
ancient prejudices. How funny is the Gypsy life?
the two-day film
festival at Lichtmess is asking ... Initially the narration of the
story of the young Roma Iva visualises the question. Already the film
title tells about what she dreamed when she and her family fled from
poverty and racisms in Yugoslavia to Germany: I have dreamt
of working
as a hairdresser
. But the fled hairdresser can’t realise her
modest
dream. Instead of that she become object of Germans migration
bureaucracy, her family and she are threatened by deportation. Instead
of cutting hair, she and other Roma resist against the enforced
returning.
Though the film does not only describe the struggle, but it clarifies also why Iva and the others wage the struggle, since what they await in Serbia is figured out by the film team in Belgrade: national heated atmosphere, which is also expressed in daily Aniticiganism. The majority of the population lived out the lasting effect of the trauma of the NATO bombing war against Yugoslavia in aggression against minorities. Social exclusion is everyday life for Roma; violence, rape or even homicide are the order of the day. When the team return to Germany Iva already disappears into illegality. The film shows how she and her family come to terms with this situation. A situation, in which many Roma living here find themselves.
As persons with exceptional leave to remain for humanitarian reasons they have to face deportation at any time. A state of uncertainty in which they have to live for years.
The director Lidija Mirkovic portraits also other Roma families and their children in Germany and see them after their deportation in former Yugoslavia. Noticeable visible is the mental overload of the children, which – born and raised in Germany – now find themselves in a completely different state. Their dreams and plans, the familiar surrounding and friends were forcibly destroyed. (...)
Gaston Kirsche, in: taz (tageszeitung), 2008-04-12
ON THE ROAD
Gypsies in Germany and Serbia tell in their daily environment stories that they experienced themselves. They report about the events that happened, as they were refugees and only temporarily tolerated persons. They talk about their hopes, their disappointments, violence, discrimination, poorness and the perspectives of the life. Briefly – they talk about the life of a Gypsy.
It starts with a narration of an anonymous Gypsy who passes with a ship on a dramatic way the Adriatic Sea to immigrate illegally to Italy. We hear fragments of different stories of flight experiences. Wherefore they flight? The answer to this question is given in the middle part of the film. It is about the harsh social reality of Gypsies in Serbia, but meant are also other States from Eastern Europe. This social reality contravene to all cliché, which are characterized by romantic and kitschy imaginations and which don’t let any space for the perception of the real life of Gypsies. This film is also an attempt to correct existing prejudices. With 12 millions people declared / announced officially “Gypsies” are the largest European Minority, which lives since centuries on this continent.
A nearly classic holder of the thoughts about Gypsy-living is the Iconography of Carmen which Merimées created. Pictures of Carmen decorated since decades and still decorate living rooms. The different Carmens in I HAVE DREAMT OF WORKING AS A HAIRDRESSER do not have a self-determined sexuality nor they could define their personal path of live independently. They are happy, when they have an ensured meal. In this film pictures and reality clash painfully.
Markus Westphalen