ROMA FILM FEST: ROMA IN FRONT AND BEHIND THE CAMERA

Open seminar of the course Representation and Power
A selection of films screened at Romakép Műhely (Roma Visual Lab)
romafilm# participatory filmmaking# exchange of experiences# exchange of ideas

12-13 May 2023.

Tranzit House, Barițiu (Malom) Street 16.
Entrance from the Nameless street

Special guest: András Müllner, associate professor
and the ROMAKÉP MŰHELY (ROMA VISUAL LAB)
The Research Centre for Minor Media/Culture - Department of Media and Communication, ELTE BTK, Budapest

Hosted and coordinated by Csilla Könczei, associate professor
and the students of the Master’s Programme of the Department of Hungarian Ethnography and Anthropology, Faculty of Letters, BBU & Tranzit Foundation

Organizers: Cloșca Jasmina, Könczei Csilla, Magyari Noémi, Maxim Lorand, Seprődi Attila, Török Ákos

SHORT PROGRAM → https://fb.me/e/Jl9S6ebO

DETAILED PROGRAM ↓

Friday, May 12

16:00 Introduction: Representation and Power. Master course and Roma Film Festival of the Department of Ethnography and Anthropology, BBU Cluj. Presented by Csilla Könczei.
http://etno.lett.ubbcluj.ro/
http://etno.lett.ubbcluj.ro/?fbclid=IwAR3N0KSVNrndhilhsWClHW-fiN7vRXpbkPutFc7tb-2xw-tYGtnk2shG2h8&lang=en
https://www.facebook.com/neprajz.kolozsvar/?locale=hu_HU

16:15 Romakép Műhely (Roma Visual Lab). A course and film club of the Department of Media and Communication of ELTE Budapest. Presented by András Müllner.
http://romakepmuhely.hu/
http://romakepmuhely.hu/en/home/
https://www.facebook.com/romakepmuhely?locale=hu_HU

DISCUSSION (Discussions will be held in Hungarian except the panels beginning at 14:00 and 16:00 on Saturday, which will be in English.)

18:00 ON THE MARGINS. EMPHATETIC REPRESENTATIONS OF MARGINALIZED ROMA COMMUNITIES

György Czabán – György Pálos: All black 1995, 15’ – documentary in Hungarian language
The basic material for All Black was shot in Ózd in 1994. The authors raise several questions: what are the consequences of the mass dismissal of workers in industry, how ghettos are formed, what are the livelihood opportunities for the people living in abject poverty around the former extraction sites, what is the hierarchical relationship between the majority in power and the minority left in the role of victims. The film answers these questions in a frank and honest way. The film won the Tolerance Award and the Mediawave Festival’s Best Documentary Award.

György Czabán is one of the founders of the independent film group Közgáz Visual Brigade (KVB), which was established in the 1980s. As a director, cinematographer and producer, he has produced around 40 short films and television series. György Pálos has worked in the film industry since 1989 as a director-cameraman and producer, and has been involved in the production of more than 200 feature films, short films, documentaries, television programmes and educational-methodological films. Their joint work includes the Roma-themed film Országalma (1998, 90’), which won the Special Jury Prize at the 1998 Hungarian Film Festival.
HTTP://WWW.C3.HU/COLLECTION/VIDEOMUVESZET/MUVESZEK/KOZGAZ/CV.HTML

Benő Baranyi: Anja. 2020, 19’ – feature film in Hungarian, with English subtitles.
Produced by Filmkontroll, SZFE. Starring: Frigyes Kovács, Ágnes Máhr, Erik Major, Rómeó Pápai.
Anja is the director’s graduation film, which won prizes at the Bushó, Szolnok and Berlin Interfilm short film festivals. The subject of the film is the manifestation of racism against Roma in the health sector, specifically forced sterilisation. The main question of the film is: Who gets to decide about life?
https://magyar.film.hu/filmhu/magazin/baranyi-beno-hiteles-filmet-akartam-kesziteni-diszkriminacio-anja-interju

Róbert Pölcz – Boglárka Pölcz: Safari. 2004, 9’ A PnP production. Video without text.
https://www.verzio.org/2005/hun/main/m39_szafari.html
http://digit.bibl.u-szeged.hu/00000/00099/02001/00069/dm_2001_069_006.pdf

DISCUSSION ABOUT THE FILMS
Moderated by András Beke, Timea Domokos and Bernadett Nagy, master students

20:00 ROMA SELF-REPRESENTATION. ROMA FILM WORKSHOPS

ROMA MEDIA SCHOOL. A FEKETE DOBOZ (BLACK BOX) FOUNDATION PROJECT

Juci Csík: Pluck. 2004, 20’
The inspiration for the film came from an article by Elza Lakatos about goose-tearing Roma living near Orosháza. For them, this was the only job available, which provided a living.
Read more: http://romakepmuhely.hu/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Romakép-Műhely-2020-beszámoló.pdf

Juci Csík is a former student of the Roma Media School and a former staff member of Radio C. She states and admits that the Roma Media School significantly changed her outlook. She realized that everyone’s truth should always be shown, be it beautiful, or ugly.
https://filmtett.ro/cikk/beszelgetes-csik-jucival

The Roma Media School was founded in 2001 by the Black Box Foundation. They provided a one-year training course for students in documentary film production, journalism, as well as cinematography and editing. The aim was to give students the skills to portray their own home environment. The school ran until 2004.
See also: https://catalog.osaarchivum.org/catalog/xpK0EYnn?fbclid=IwAR389AIWH_CwT2uXjewCJyLos9fgAMEkm2z0-01yupmcyoCc8gnwcsUyyvI#en

The Black Box Foundation started as an independent media company. Before the regime change, it was an important participant in documenting political, social and cultural life in Hungary. It gave publicity to people who were excluded and silenced by the state-controlled media. The crew recorded material on VHS tapes at the time of its launch. In the 1990s, it turned its attention to people on the margins.
See also: https://www.osaarchivum.org/film-catalog/305-0-2

FILMS MADE AT THE BUVERO ROMA WOMEN MEDIA CAMP, ORGANIZED BY THE ROMEDIA FOUNDATION
https://www.facebook.com/buvero/
https://www.youtube.com/@romediafoundation3578/featured

Generations, 2014, 10’ – documentary film in Romani and Hungarian, subtitled in Hungarian and English.
Generations, like the other videos, is a group work, shot in Nyírvasvár. The differences between generations are presented through interviews with a young girl and an older women. We learn, for example, that while the older generation communicates in Gypsy in the community, the young people “although they understand every word in Gypsy, they speak Hungarian.”

Numbered Street, 2014, 10’- Hungarian speaking documentary.
The video uses interviews conducted in public spaces to show the emergence of a conflict situation in Miskolc due to an unlawful eviction. The interviewees express their indignation against exclusion.

Stolperstein 7’, 2015 – documentary film in Hungarian with English subtitles.
The makers of the video explore the Holocaust through the local history of Nagykőrös. The memoir reveals a lively, prosperous town before the Second World War, where Jews and Roma alike lived in harmony with the majority society. The film’s title refers to the so-called Stolperstein, a memorial plaque set into the pavement in memory of the victims of the Holocaust.

The Romedia Foundation is a Budapest-based Roma NGO, founded in 1992. It promotes the development and empowerment of Roma activists, using television programmes, publications and multimedia digital technologies to present Roma issues from the inside. It aims to contribute to a positive experience of Roma ethnic identity through films, international multimedia campaigns and cultural events, to help overcome anti-Roma prejudices and to provide information about Roma to policy makers in a different way than usual.

Buvero is an innovative cross-border project aimed at providing young Roma women with journalism skills and digital distribution tools. The sessions provide an opportunity to learn about contemporary media content and the different ways of producing, and critically analysing, and to make informed use of new media opportunities. The intensive education provided in the camp will enable Roma women, who are disadvantaged in many ways, to take control of their mediatised image and to create a positive self-image through self-representation. The project aims to create a network of young Roma women who produce media content. Buvero means “shell” in Romani, symbolising communication, positive relationships and the power of women.

https://www.romediafoundation.org
https://www.facebook.com/buvero/
https://www.youtube.com/@romediafoundation3578/featured

DISCUSSION ABOUT THE WORKSHOPS AND THE VIDEOS
Moderated by Evelin Kovács and Benedek Vadász, master students

Saturday, 13 May

14:00 Participatory film-making, participatory action research, community cinema.
Presentation and screening: András Müllner (in English)
https://www.replika.hu/replika/124-01
http://minormedia.hu/blog/

DISCUSSION
Moderated by: Adél Boros, master student

16:00 Tranzit House: Interkulti, Tranzit Visual Lab
Intercultural art projects for children and teenagers in Tranzit House. Presentation and screening.
Presented by Harbula Hajnalka, Csilla Könczei, Noémi Magyari, Maxim Lorand (in English)

Ráhel Eckstein-Kovács, Csenge Schneider-Lőnhárt, Bence Schneider: Here you can be truly children. Video in Romanian and Hungarian with Romanian, Hungarian and English subtitles. 2022, 18’

DISCUSSION
Moderated by Adél Boros, master student

18:00 ARTISTIC PROJECTS FOR EMANCIPATION

THE VÁNDORMOZI (THE TRAVELLING CINEMA) PROJECT

Feedback / Visszacsatolás (Gilvánfa, 2003-2004-2005, 2011) 18’

Sándor Sára: Gypsies / Cigányok, 1962, 17’

Within the framework of the traveling cinema project, the director, József Kővári Borz, and his team organized film screenings in those settlements whose residents have no access to culture at all, or with difficulty. On the occasion of such a screening, the viewers recognized their family members and friends in the film Gypsies made in 1962. Later, it became part of the project to film community events and screenings, which can also be seen by community residents. However, it does not use standard filmmaking methods, as it takes and shows the film of the residents, and they even organize community activities in conjunction with the screening. It also reveals how the Gilvánfa community views the film-making team, how it reflects on itself, and what kind of relationship it has with the film-making team. In fact, the Vándormozi project has become a multi-layered commemorative event for the community.
More here: http://doktori.btk.elte.hu/phil/pocsikandrea/diss.pdf

József Kővári Borz: My Village on a Sunday, 7’48’'
OSA - Open Society Archives / Black Box Roma Media School
My village on Sunday is the first documentary film by József Kővári Borz, winner of the 2002 Student Film Festival. The director returns to his home village to take snapshots of life in the Roma community. He shoots in a family environment, and then we see short scenes of life, such as a car repair. The film takes off in many directions, imbued throughout with a sense of immediacy. József Borz Kővári is a cinematographer-director of Boyash Roma origin who studied filmmaking at the Roma Media School, such as Juci Csík and Róbert Bordás.

Szalonna, 2008, 7’
The film gives an insight into the event of the film screening, starting from the announcement of the program and the joint activities that precede it. An important segment of such an occasion is the joint lunch, which is supplemented by various children’s programs, singing, and joint music. The day will end with the screening of the already announced film.

Erdély (Reci, Moacșa, Viișoara). 2009, 5’
József Kővári Borz filmed in three villages in Transylvania, more specifically in Reci, Moacșa and Viișoara in Covasna County, in which the actors talk about their own experiences and difficulties. In addition, the question of identity and ethnicity becomes one of the topics of the conversation.

The interactive community project Vándormozi started in 1998 at the initiative of József Borz Kővári, who came up with the idea of taking the films that had a great impact on him to the slums where they are not available: let the gypsy people could see what kind of films were made about them. Later, József Kővári Borz founded the Fény-Arnyék Association, within whose framework the project still operates, and its concept has not changed since then. Every time a film is made — in parallel with the screenings and other programs (joint cooking, entertainment) which the village films about itself — and they can also watch it together. This project becomes important because of its interactive nature. It also seems like a good strategy from the point of view of contemporary art to be able to trickle down to the completely ordinary level, which can have a kind of special effect on people and, as a result, change their attitude towards certain things.

THE CONTEMPORARY ART PROJECTS OF SOSTAR GROUP

Rewritable Pictures. 2010, 6’
The performance invites to play with a selection of images from the Roma Photo Archive. Its aim is to promote awareness of perception. Through the images included, new layers of perception are created, showing how to open up the possibilities of reading the photograph. Throughout the project the creators worked with photographs that depart from the codes of traditional Roma representation and sought a form that could function as a “data repository” with a more complex set of information. This is why the work is said to be “a forerunner of a future digital photographic archive.”

Sostar Sostar, why are you Sostar? 2014, 5’23"
The emancipation efforts of the group have also led to the drafting of a manifesto, in which they draw attention to the social reception of people (artists) of Roma origin, which does not show signs of democratisation but rather signs of ethnic categorisation. In Romani ‘sostar’ means ’why’. The short film explores the issues raised in the manifesto of the Sostar art collective, playfully using the medium of the video.

The SOSTAR GROUP art collective was founded in Berlin in 2013. Its members are international, Hungarian and Hungarian-Roma writers, poets, artists and filmmakers who use the language of art to draw attention to the social situation of the Roma and their role in society.
Members of SOSTAR GROUP: József Choli Daróczi, Gusztáv Nagy, Norbert Tihanyics, András Kállai, Henrik Kállai, André Raatzsch, Béla Rácz, Rodrigó Balogh
József Choli Daróczi is the first poet and writer who wrote in Romani in Hungary. He began his career in the 1960s, and from 1972 he was an unqualified teacher, ethnologist, secondary school teacher then a college lecturer. He is also the author of a Romani language-book still in use.
Rodrigó Balogh is a film and theatre director, drama teacher, actor, founding director of the Independent Theatre of Hungary, founded in 2004, which aims to address Roma and other ethnic issues through the language of art.
André Raatzsch explores in his artistic and curatorial work the emancipatory nature of the Roma movements in Hungary.
More information here: https://hu.tranzit.org/en/project/0/2014-01-10/roma-the-contract-to-sell-the-ethnicity
https://hu.tranzit.org/file/roma_the_contract_to_sell.pdf

ROMANI WOMEN BEHIND AND IN FRONT OF THE CAMERA PROJECT

Galya Stoyanova: Pages of My book, 2013, 5’ – Short film in English about a contemporary art project
Pages of My Book is a short film capturing the Bulgarian photographer and film director, Galya Stoyanova’s performance created during her internship at Romedia Foundation in 2013. In the video Galya, who is of Roma origin, wanders on the streets of Budapest with a camera, wearing traditional Roma clothing. The unusual situation of the performance brings the artist closer to her identity while through the lenses of the camera she can look back to the people gazing her with belligerence or even curiosity.
https://www.romarchive.eu/en/collection/pages-of-my-book/
https://www.romarchive.eu/en/film/depiction-rom

DISCUSSION
Moderated by: Réka Erőss, Kriszta Kedves, Kinga Trandafir and Benedek Vadász, master students