POLAND / 28 MIN / 2024 / DOCUMENTARY / DCP 2K / 16:9 / 5.1 / COLOR
Subtitles available: EN, IT, ES
The Roma in Poland are the largest and the most marginalised ethnic minority. Roksana identifies as both Roma [Gypsy] and Polish [Gadji]. Employed as a teaching assistant, she works to keep Roma children in school, as more than half leave education before the age of sixteen. She could be the perfect bridge, but each culture wants her to reject the other. Roksana, however, desires to belong.
Festivals & Awards
Lucania Film Festival (Italy, 2024) – Best Documentary Film
Solanin Film Festival (Poland, 2024)
AKE DIKHEA? 8th International Festival of Romani Film (Germany, 2024)
Director’s statement
I am attracted to Roksana’s dual Polish-Romani heritage, which offers a unique perspective on “them and us”. I got to know Roksana four years ago, straight after her diagnosis with MS. I was taken in by Roksana’s openness, charm, and honesty, her fear but at the same time her willingness to fight. Her gentle criticism of the Roma community, but at the same time her pride in being part of this culture.
Despite many obstacles, Roksana remains a humble but strong fighter determined to challenge and emancipate the Roma community she works with. Diving deeper into
Roksana’s life, I often wonder: what is the Roma identity today, and is there a way for positive and enriching coexistence of the Polish and Roma culture without forcing the Roma community to assimilate? Will prejudices on both sides ever vanish, or is this an impossible dream?
I have been a foreigner most of my life, and this experience makes me identify with the feeling of being the other. I am originally from Slovakia, went to school in Austria, studied in France, lived in London, and Berlin and this is my second film about minority issues in Poland. Since 96% of Polish society are white, catholic, and heterosexual, it makes Poland the most homogenous country in Europe.
Whilst my personal encounter with being marginalized, of being communally blamed for the wrongdoing of any Eastern European is not comparable to the daily discrimination faced by Roma people, I find it my moral duty to amplify diverse voices and create spaces for discussion on integration, enabling cultural autonomy, rather than assimilation.
Gypsy Gadji aims to connect on a deeply emotional level. Roksana’s story seeks to create empathy, and attempts to shift the stigma that the Roma community suffers from.
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written and directed by
produced by
Rafal Sakowski, Dasa Raimanova
cinematography
Dasa Raimanova, Zuzanna Zachara Hassairi
editing by
Dorota Ros
sound design
Pawel Uszynski
music used
Joe Zeitlin
distribution and world sales
dasa raimanova's bio
Dasa Raimanova is a Slovak documentary director and producer based between London and Berlin, whose work explores socio-political topics, primarily focusing on women and minorities. Apart from working for the documentary team at the international broadcaster DW, she directed and co-produced, Gypsy Gadji (2023), a Polish Film Institute-supported short documentary that was developed by EsoDoc; East-West Talent Lab and DocLab Poland, where its pitch at Krakow FF obtained the Dok Leipzig Co-Pro Market award. An EBU-produced TV short documentary she directed, Across the Road - Worlds Apart (2019), was broadcast in nine European countries and has online views of 700K on DW YouTube platforms. POLYLAND (2018), a feature documentary she directed and produced, was screened at international film festivals worldwide and at large numbers of community organised screenings as well as became part of Amnesty International's campaign against hate crimes in Poland. A graduate of Middlesex University (UK) in Film, Video and Interactive Arts as well as in Biological Anthropology (BA) and Cognitive Sciences (MA) from Universität Wien (AT) | Univerisité Lyon (FR). Her experience being a foreigner most of her live motivates her to focus her work on minorities and to encourage diverse voices on the screen.