How cin­e­ma is chal­leng­ing pop­u­lar rep­re­sen­ta­tions of the gyp­sy community

As any­one famil­iar with Chan­nel 4’s My Big Fat Gyp­sy Wed­ding and its var­i­ous spin-offs can attest, Britain’s trav­el­ling com­mu­ni­ty has plen­ty of rea­son to be sus­pi­cious of the film and tele­vi­sion indus­try. A grotesque series of stereo­types not dis­sim­i­lar in tone to a Vic­to­ri­an freak show, MBFGW com­bines sniffy con­de­scen­sion with a lech­er­ous film­ing style, often lin­ger­ing on teenage girls’ bod­ies. Pur­port­ing to be an ​‘inside look’ at the com­mu­ni­ty, the show seemed to hard­en pub­lic mis­un­der­stand­ing into point-and-laugh disdain.

In 2014, direc­tor Béla Tarr helped lead a boy­cott against Hun­gar­i­an film fes­ti­val Cine­fest, after the pro­gram­mers announced they would not accept any ​‘Roma-relat­ed sub­ject mat­ter’ in their sub­mis­sions. Poor treat­ment of the Roma in mod­ern Europe is still some­thing like a dirty secret, and alien­ation from the arts and film cul­ture seems com­mon­place. Thank­ful­ly, organ­i­sa­tions like Rome­dia and the IRFC do exist, work­ing to com­bat this sort of exclusion.

That’s why ​‘Gyp­sies, Roma, and Trav­ellers on Film’ – a project that I’ve curat­ed along­side my hus­band Charles, a film­mak­er and teacher of Eng­lish Romany gyp­sy her­itage – has become so vital. Our screen­ing events are locat­ed specif­i­cal­ly in places geo­graph­i­cal­ly friend­ly to trav­ellers in cin­e­mas which may open their doors to any vari­ety of curi­ous moviegoers.

Our twin screen­ing days share a pro­gramme, both open­ing with a 60 minute BBC doc­u­men­tary from 1969 called Where Do We Go From Here? The film was direct­ed by Philip Don­nel­lan, a vet­er­an BBC doc­u­men­tar­i­an who worked for four decades, pro­duc­ing 80 films most­ly on work­ing-class lives. Don­nel­lan was an out­spo­ken activist for GRT (Gyp­sy, Roma and Trav­eller) caus­es, and his doc explores the chang­ing lifestyles of the long-entrenched British trav­eller as soci­ety grows more indus­tri­alised and wary of those with­out a fixed abode.

We’ll also be screen­ing John Mills’ 1965 clas­sic Sky West and Crooked, an odd­ball West Coun­try romance between a trav­eller and non-trav­eller star­ring Hay­ley Mills and Ian McShane. Both strange and poignant, the film explores the life of 17-year-old Bry­die Smith, a vil­lage girl psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly dam­aged by a trag­ic shoot­ing acci­dent. Treat­ed with sus­pi­cion by the inhab­i­tants of her small vil­lage, she spends her time with a gang of younger chil­dren. When enig­mat­ic Romany gyp­sy Roib­in (McShane) takes a roman­tic inter­est in her, the mutu­al enmi­ty between trav­ellers and the set­tled com­mu­ni­ty becomes appar­ent. Chil­dren under ten inno­cent­ly admit that they’re ​“scared of gyp­pos” – sug­gest­ing that Mills’ film is one that under­stands how a deep-seat­ed fear of the unknown can fuel prejudice.

In any dis­cus­sion about race and rep­re­sen­ta­tion – par­tic­u­lar­ly with a com­mu­ni­ty where the real­i­ties of sys­temic racism are still incred­i­bly appar­ent – it’s a mat­ter of com­bat­ing the neg­a­tive. As a pro­gram­mer, it soon becomes clear that watch­ing trav­ellers on film often means being stuck between invis­i­bil­i­ty or den­i­gra­tion. We decid­ed ear­ly on to lim­it our choic­es to the Eng­lish lan­guage, in order to be as wel­com­ing as pos­si­ble to audi­ences with vary­ing lit­er­a­cy rates. But it was a strug­gle to find the pos­i­tive at times; even news­reel footage – going back to 1937 – men­tions ​‘bar­bar­ic’ and ​‘strange’ cus­toms. A clip from 1972, seem­ing­ly sym­pa­thet­ic to a lack of prop­er gov­ern­ment site allo­ca­tions, still hears a coun­cil employ­ee say weari­ly, ​“We’ve had more than our fair share of gypsies.”

There have been recent British films fea­tur­ing trav­ellers – though most­ly in sup­port­ing roles and with remark­ably few actu­al­ly made by film­mak­ers of GRT extrac­tion. It seems as though these char­ac­ters are often used as a quick short­hand for a par­tic­u­lar sort of ​‘grit­ty’ envi­ron­ment. Recent films of the social real­ist tra­di­tion, like Clio Barnard’s The Self­ish Giant, dab­ble in ele­ments of the cul­ture – even using the Romani lan­guage – with­out any gen­uine engage­ment with the impli­ca­tions of that iden­ti­ty. Andrea Arnold’s Fish Tank also shows a glimpse of one character’s gyp­sy back­ground, but main­ly to sug­gest a rough upbring­ing and a vague feel­ing of men­ace. While both are fan­tas­tic por­traits of work­ing-class life, nei­ther seem to exhib­it more than a pass­ing inter­est in trav­eller culture.

There are pre­cious few chances for trav­ellers to see them­selves hon­est­ly depict­ed onscreen, and even few­er for them to see work made by and organ­ised for their own com­mu­ni­ties. And as much as well-round­ed exter­nal images of the com­mu­ni­ty mat­ter, the pic­tures that are inter­nalised can be equal­ly impor­tant. To that end, I’ll be mod­er­at­ing a brief Q+A/discussion ses­sion at the end of both events, wel­com­ing a num­ber of to-be-announced pan­elists from Romany back­grounds. It’s heart­en­ing to know that we aren’t the only pro­gram­mers who’ve tak­en an inter­est in sim­i­lar sub­ject mat­ter; Bor­der­lines Film Fes­ti­val will also be run­ning a first-time ​‘Romani Cin­e­ma’ strand start­ing on 1 March, large­ly fea­tur­ing selec­tions from con­ti­nen­tal Europe.

It’s true that out­side the realm of tele­vi­sion and cin­e­ma, there’s a great deal of work to be done. Just a few months ago, I lis­tened to a 15-year-old Irish trav­el­ling girl explain why she’d left school at a young age. She felt there was no point in con­tin­u­ing, as her recog­nis­able accent would keep most employ­ers from hir­ing her. It was heart­break­ing to hear her response to dis­crim­i­na­tion – a sort of mat­ter-of-fact defeatism.

So maybe this is ide­al­is­tic, but we hope that ​‘Gyp­sies, Roma, and Trav­ellers On Film’ is a small step towards open­ing up dis­cus­sions around how trav­ellers are treat­ed, and con­se­quent­ly about how they are por­trayed. Maybe we can use cin­e­ma to talk about what we’d like to see more of – and less of – in terms of rep­re­sen­ta­tion. If the young girl I spoke to is proof of any­thing, it’s that self-per­cep­tion mat­ters enor­mous­ly – and I’m a firm believ­er that cin­e­ma can be absolute­ly vital in that respect.

‘Gyp­sies, Roma, and Trav­ellers on Film’ will be held on 12 March at South Hol­land Cen­tre in Spald­ing, Lin­colnshire and 4 April at Cam­bridge Arts Pic­ture­house. Tick­ets for 12 March cur­rent­ly on sale at south​hol​land​cen​tre​.co​.uk

You can find more about Bor­der­lines Film Festival’s Romani Strand at bor​der​li​nes​film​fes​ti​val​.co​.uk