Building bridges through the arts

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We are Roma Media Film Productions and our cinematographic projects aim to build bridges through the arts between the Roma peoples and their host communities.

Fighting predjudice through the medium of film, our projects entertain as well as educate, brining together the two communities in the common love of cinema.

So, who are the Roma?

One of the most persecuted minorities in Europe, indeed the world, often referred to as the Silent Victims of the Holocaust, the Roma are a collection of peoples who used to and some still do - lead a nomadic lifestyle through all the continent of Europe.

Known for their music, dance and craftsmanship, many negative stereotypes have been attributed to them which are still current today.

The Nazi Era ... the build up

Before the Nazis

The Nazis were not the first to exhibit anti Romany feelings, as with Anti-Jewish feeling it has been going on for centruies.

Indeed they were even elslaved in Eastern Europe, as labourers and as concubines.

The Nazis were not the first to instigate anti-Roma feeling: the Wiemer Republic established after the First World War had established the laws that the Nazi's expanded upon and enforced in a more vigorous fashion.

Roma Migrations:

In 1926 the southern German state of Bavaria passed a law requiring all Romany to prove their regular employment. Called the 'Law for the Combating of Gypsies, Travellers and the Workshy', the law had as penalty two years in a Workhouse for anyone failing to produce shuch documentation.

The laws required them to register with officials, stopped their freedom of travel, and those in breach of them were sent to labour camps. The Nazis took these laws and made them more severe, introducing among other things sterilization and concentration camps.

Wiemar Germany:

The Geraman state before the rise of Nazism had its capital in the city of Wiemar, and similar to todays federal model, each state had its own local government.

Bavaria, a predominantly Catholic state in the south of the country, was a hotbed for Communists, sepratists and Nazis.

Culture:

Germany always had a militarist culture, from the days of unification in the previos century.

While most prevaliant in Prussia, a state now owned by both Poland and Russia, the culture was national, particularily in Bavairia.

Anti Semetic and anti Roma feeling was rife, as was the belief in German superiority.

This climaxed with the rise of the Nazis in the 1930's, which put paid not only to the Wiemar Republic, but also to Germany as a world military power.