The Deathless Woman

Last updated
The Deathless Woman
Directed byRoz Mortimer
Written byRoz Mortimer
Produced byRoz Mortimer
Starring
  • Iveta Kokyová
  • Loren O’Dair
  • Oliver Malik
Release date
  • October 6, 2019 (2019-10-06)
Running time
89 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
Languages
  • Romani
  • English
  • Hungarian
  • Polish

The Deathless Woman is a 2019 film by Roz Mortimer which is both a ghost story and a documentary, and which investigates historic and contemporary crimes against the Roma people. [1]

Contents

Plot

The Deathless Woman, voiced by Iveta Kokyová in Romani (Lovari dialect), is the ghost of a Roma matriarch who has returned to tell of what she witnessed during World War II and to question the absence of her history in archives and museums. She watches the non-Roma Seeker (Loren O’Dair) investigate her story and more. We also hear first person testimony accounts from real-life witnesses and see fantastic recreations of some scenes, as tableaux vivants.

Background

In an online discussion with Roma Holocaust historian and activist Ágnes Daróczi and Professor of Media at Eötvös Loránd University, [2] András Müllner, Roz Mortimer discusses how discovering Daróczi's book Pharrajimos: The Fate of the Roma During the Holocaust was an important factor in developing the film. She also describes her work with Roma language expert Juice Vamosi who was a consultant and the Romani translator on the film . [3]

Cast

Release

The Deathless Woman played at the London Film Festival in 2019. Since then it has screened at various festivals including: Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival in Czechia, Borderlines Film Festival in the UK, EBS International Documentary Festival (EIDF) in Korea, B3 Biennial of the Moving Image in Frankfurt, Aesthetica Short Film Festival in the UK, Ake Dikhea? Festival of Romani Film, Rolling Film Festival in Kosovo, Human. It has also streamed online at True Story.[ citation needed ]

Reception

The Deathless Woman won the Special Jury Award at the Ake Dikhea? Festival of Romani Film. Jury member Lisa Smith described it as “A film with a lot of weight, being both politically and artistically moving." She said "It highlights the need for commemoration and remembrance of the Romani Holocaust victims. It also has a lot of strength in connecting the historical persecution of Romani people with the current day situation.” [4]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Romani Holocaust</span> Genocide against Romani in Europe

The Romani Holocaust or the Romani genocide was the planned effort by Nazi Germany and its World War II allies and collaborators to commit ethnic cleansing and eventually genocide against European Roma and Sinti peoples during the Holocaust era.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kim Longinotto</span> British documentary film maker (born 1948)

Kim Longinotto is a British documentary film maker, well known for making films that highlight the plight of female victims of oppression or discrimination. Longinotto has made more than 20 films, usually featuring inspiring women and girls at their core. Her subjects have included female genital mutilation in Kenya, women standing up to rapists in India, and the story of Salma, an Indian Muslim woman who smuggled poetry out to the world while locked up by her family for decades.

Knocking is a 2006 documentary film directed by Joel Engardio and Tom Shepard that focuses on the civil liberties fought for by Jehovah's Witnesses. It focuses primarily on the stories of three Jehovah's Witnesses, and how their lives demonstrate three fundamental Witness teachings that have affected society in general: Conscientious objection, and rejection of blood transfusions and saluting the flag.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Benedek Fliegauf</span> Hungarian film director and screenwriter

Benedek "Bence" Fliegauf is a Hungarian film director and screenwriter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dina Babbitt</span> Czech-American painter

Annemarie Dina Babbitt was an artist and Holocaust survivor. A naturalized U.S. citizen, she resided in Santa Cruz, California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ceija Stojka</span> Holocaust survivor and artist (1933–2013)

Ceija Stojka was an Austrian Romani writer, painter, activist, and musician, and survivor of the Holocaust.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Haifaa al-Mansour</span> Saudi Arabian film director (born 1974)

Haifaa al-Mansour is a Saudi Arabian film director. She is one of the country's best-known and one of the first female Saudi filmmakers.

<i>Latcho Drom</i> 1993 French film

Latcho Drom is a 1993 French film directed and written by Tony Gatlif. The movie is about the Romani people's journey from north-west India to Spain, consisting primarily of music. The film was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival.

<i>The Leper of Saint Giles</i> 1981 novel by Ellis Peters

The Leper of Saint Giles is a medieval mystery novel by Ellis Peters, set in October 1139. It is the fifth novel in The Cadfael Chronicles and was first published in 1981.

<i>Imaginary Witness</i> 2004 American film

Imaginary Witness: Hollywood and the Holocaust is a 2004 documentary film directed by Daniel Anker and narrated by Gene Hackman that examines the treatment of the Holocaust in Hollywood films over a period of sixty years and the impact of the films on public perception and thinking, and vice versa. The film was originally produced for the American cable network, American Movie Classics.

<i>Korkoro</i> 2009 French film

Korkoro is a 2009 French drama film written and directed by Tony Gatlif, starring Francophone actors Marc Lavoine, Marie-Josée Croze and James Thiérrée. The film's cast were of many nationalities such as Albanian, Kosovar, Georgian, Serbian, French, Norwegian, and nine Romani people Gatlif recruited in Transylvania.

Lisa F. Jackson is an American documentary filmmaker, known most recently for her films, The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo (2007) and Sex Crimes Unit (2011), which aired on HBO in 2008 and 2011. Her work has earned awards including two Emmy awards and a Jury Prize from the Sundance Film Festival. She has screened her work and lectured at the Columbia University School of Journalism, Brandeis, Purdue, NYU, Yale, Notre Dame and Harvard University and was a visiting professor of documentary film at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Heidi Ewing</span> American documentary filmmaker

Heidi Ewing is an American documentary filmmaker and the co-director of Jesus Camp, The Boys of Baraka, 12th & Delaware, DETROPIA, Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You, One of Us, Love Fraud (series), I Carry You With Me (narrative) and Endangered.

<i>Forget Us Not</i> 2013 American film

Forget Us Not is a 2013 feature-length documentary film by Heather Connell, which follows the stories of some of the 5 million non-Jewish Holocaust survivors including artist Ceija Stojka and is narrated by actor Ron Perlman. The documentary was released on the festival circuit in August 2013 and has won eight awards to date including Feature Documentary and Editing Awards Of Merit from Accolade Film Competition, Helping Hand International Humanitarian Award from the Rhode Island International Film Festival, Best of Festival at Vancouver's Columbia Gorge International Film Festival, Mark Of Distinction Film at the New York Independent Film Festival and Best Narration and World Peace Impact Award from the Artisan World Peace Hamptons Film Festival and Feature Documentary Audience Award at the First Glance International Film Festival Los Angeles.

<i>A People Uncounted</i> 2011 Canadian film

A People Uncounted is a 2011 Canadian documentary film directed by Aaron Yeger. It tells the story about the culture and history of the Romani people in Europe, with special emphasis on their plight during The Holocaust. The film also warns of the similarities in intolerance between the time of the Porajmos and the increasing intolerance and abuse of Roma rights in Europe today. It was nominated for a Producers Guild of America award in 2012. The film was featured in the New York Gipsy Festival and is part of Vanderbilt University's Holocaust Lecture Series.

Alina Șerban is a Romanian actress, the winner of the Best Actress Award at the German Actors Guild Awards in 2020 for her leading role in Gipsy Queen, a nominee for Best Actress at the German Film Award in 2020, a representative for Romania at The Cannes International Film Festival in 2018 for her leading role in Alone at My Wedding, and the first Roma woman theatre and film director of Romania.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Diana Groó</span> Hungarian film director and screenwriter

Diana Groó is a Hungarian film director and screenwriter.

Margarete Kraus was a Roma woman who was persecuted during the Porajmos, imprisoned at Auschwitz and Ravensbruck. Her experience was recorded in later life by the photographer Reimar Gilsenbach.

Katalin Bársony is a Hungarian Romani film-maker and sociologist. She produced the series Mundi Romani – The World through Roma Eyes and directed the documentary How Far the Stars.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philomena Franz</span> German Romani author

Philomena Franz was a Sinti writer and activist from Germany, who was a survivor of the Romani Holocaust, having been imprisoned in Auschwitz. She later published works that recounted her experiences and was recognised as a significant voice in Romani literature.

References

  1. Tizard, Will (29 October 2019). "'Deathless Woman's' Roz Mortimer on Documenting Far Right Violence Then and Now". Variety. Retrieved 14 April 2022.
  2. "Ágnes Daróczi".
  3. "Discussion between Roz Mortimer". Romedia Foundation. 9 December 2020. Retrieved 14 April 2022.
  4. Smith, Lisa. "Special Jury Mention 2020". Romani Film Festival. Retrieved 14 April 2022.