Romanies: selected films

A selection of films that don't strongly reinforce negative views of these widely oppressed people. May romanies be treated better. And may there be more positive representations in films (and media generally), and coverage of the romany holocaust/porajmos. Gatlif's Korkoro is a rarity in addressing this issue.

Film stars with romany parentage/roots include Yul Brynner, Bob Hoskins, Michael Caine and it is now thought likely that Charlie Chaplin not only had a romany mother but was born in a caravan on the outskirts of Birmingham, rather than London.


FEDERCIO GARCIA LORCA: BALLAD OF THE CIVIL GUARD

Their horses are black.
Their horseshoes are black.
On their cloaks shine stains
of ink and wax.
They have skulls of lead
and cannot cry.
With their black leather souls
they ride down the road.
Hunchbacked, nocturnal,
where they stir they command
dark rubber silence
and fears of fine sand.
They go where they please,
and hide in their heads
a vague astronomy
of intangible guns.
O city of gypsies!
Banners in your corners!
The moon and the pumpkin
candied with cherries.
O city of gypsies!
Who can forget you?
City of musk and sorrow
with cinnamon towers.

When night fell, night
that makes night night,
the gypsies forged arrows
and suns in their fires.
A dying horse
knocked at every door.
Glass cocks were crowing
along Jérez De La Frontera.
The naked wind turns
the corner of surprise
in the nightsilver night,
night that makes night night.

Saint Joseph and the Virgin
have lost their castanets
and look for the gypsies
to see if they find them.
The Virgin comes dressed
in a duchess’s robe
of tinfoil from chocolates
and almond necklaces.
Saint Joseph swings his arms
beneath a silk cape.
Pedro Dómecq follows
with three Persian sultans.
The half-moon dreamed
a delight of storks.
Banners and lanterns
invade the rooftops.
Hipless ballerinas
sob in their mirrors.

Water and shadow,
shadow and water
along Jérez De La Frontera.
O city of gypsies!
Banners in your corners!
Dim your green lights,
for the Civil Guard comes.
O city of gypsies!
Who can forget you?
Leave her far from the sea,
without combs for her hair.

Two abreast they advance
to the festive city,
a rustle of pines
in their cartridge belts.
Two abreast they advance,
double nocturne of fabric.
The sky takes their fancy,
a showcase for spurs.
The unsuspecting city
multiplied its doors.
Forty Civil Guards
entered them to loot.
The clocks halted
and the bottled brandy
masqueraded as November
to avoid suspicion.
A flight of long shouts
rose in the weathervanes.
The sabers slice breezes
trampled by hooves.
The old gypsies flee
through shadowed streets
with hair fixed for sleep
and crocks of coins.
The sinister cloaks
climb the tilted streets
leaving fugitive whirls
of scissors behind.

The gypsies gather
at Bethlehem’s portal.
Full of wounds, Saint Joseph
shrouds a young maiden.
Sudden sharp rifles
ring through the night.
The Virgin heals children
with spittle from stars.
But the Civil Guard advances,
sowing bonfires.
where imagination burns
young and naked.
Rosa of Camborios
moans on her doorstep,
with her two severed breasts
lying on a platter.
And other girls fled,
pursued for their braids,
through an air where roses
of gunpowder bloomed.

When all the rooftops
were furrows in the ground,
the dawn shrugged its shoulders
in a long stone profile.

O city of gypsies!
The Civil Guard leaves
through a tunnel of silence
while the flames draw near you.
O city of gypsies!
Who can forget you?
Let them seek you in my forehead:
game of moon and sand.

(translation from Spanish)

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