Germany’s first Roma film festival AKE DIKHEA? took place in Berlin from the 19th to 22nd of October 2017.
The festival was opened with the screening of the movie DJANGO on October 19th, 2017 in the House of the EKD, which was organized together with the Evangelical Academy of Berlin and the Provincial Council of Roma and Sinti, RomnoKher Berlin-Brandenburg e.V.
It brought numerous prominent Roma and non-Roma filmmakers to the city, who engaged in conversations with the audience after most of the ten festival projections. An especially important part of the festival were the discussions and new impulses for the discourse concerning the representation of Roma and Sinti in film. Andrea Poćsik, a lecturer at the Pázmány Péter Catholic University in Budapest, Galya Stoyanova, a documentary filmmaker, lawyer and member of the International Romani Film Commission, and Patricia Pientka, a historian took part in the panel discussion on October 21st. The presentation was given by Gaby Babić, former director of the film festival goEast.
In addition to the film screenings, in cooperation with the Schwarzkopf Foundation Young Europe and the Journey2Creation, two school screenings of the film NEBEL IM AUGUST followed by a discussion with the festival director Hamze Bytyci took place on October 20. On the next day the workshop “Avoiding Simple Stories” for filmmakers and film students, led by Andrea Poćsik, provided theoretical and practical knowledge on how to avoid stereotypical portrayals of Roma in the film.
On October 22nd the festival was closed with a gala night, where two awards were presented: The festival jury awarded the movie CZECHS AGAINST CZECHS by Tomáš Kratochvíl as the best festival film. The Hungarian director and member of the jury Esztér Hajdú stated in her film review: The film deals with problems such as right-wing extremism, neo-Nazis, hate crimes, structural racism, segregation, isolation, Roma emancipation and identity in Czech society and he succeeds to reveal what is hidden from our reality. The prize was accepted by a representative of Jozef Miker, one of the film protagonists.
The movie GYPSY SPIRIT by Austrian director Klaus Hundsbichler won the audience award and the director was able to accept the award himself.
Both winners received one of the five art pieces, created as limited editions by the artist Delaine Le Bas especially for the film festival, as well as three drawings by the artist Damian Le Bas. Congratulations!
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