Abstract

Screening of Korkoro (2009), a film by Romani director Toni Gatliff.

In Nazi-occupied France in 1943, a group of Roma are surviving in the forests, avoiding the German soldiers and the French administrative powers who are rounding up all “nomads” to put them in concentration camps. In a desperate bid to stock up food supplies before the winter, this group of Roma decides to stop at a village where, in previous years, they had regularly found work at harvest time, sold baskets and repaired metal wares – and had friends among the local population…

Adriana Alexander, an independent researcher focusing on the oral tradition of Romani communities in Europe, will introduce ‘Korkoro’ with background information about Toni Gatliff and his works, about Romani communities in France – their language, their worldview, their trades and crafts – and what happened to them as a result of the Nazi occupation/French collaboration.