Synopsis
Little is known about Roma Holocaust, while the Pogrom is still being denied. The aim of documentaries such as „Valley of Sighs” is to make the present viewer aware of the inglorious facts of history, of its’ errors and horrors, in order to increase his/her lucidity and responsibility regarding the facts of the past but mostly those of the present. In two years’ period, following the deportation of 25,000 Roma people to Transnistria at general Antonescu’s orders, approximately 12,000 souls died after suffering that is hard to picture. This historical harm can’t be fixed, but the recovery of the facts is a gesture of historical introspection that the society at large and the cultural community owe not only to the victims and survivors, but to themselves too.
„We tried to make a state of-mind film, in which to talk about people, and not Roma people, about human solidarity and not Ukrainians, about Antonescu’s regime criminal military and institutional thinking, and not about the generalized guilt of two people: Romanian and German.” (Mihai Andrei Leaha – www.agenda.liternet.ro )
Director: Mihai Andrei Leaha, Andrei Crișan, Iulia Hossu
Cinematography by: Mihai Andrei Leaha, Andrei Crișan
Produced by: Institute for Studierea Problemelor Minorităților Naționale & TRIBA Film
Sound: Iulia Hossu, Ion Gnatiuc
Year: 2013
Genre: documentary
Duration: 57 min.
Subtitles: english
53,496 – Cinepub viewers
Synopsis
Between 1942 and 1944, 25.000 Romani people were deported to Transnistria by the Antonescu regime. Half of them soon died of hunger, cold or other causes. 70 years later, a few survivors, who were of a very young age at that time, recall and give a sad account of those terrible events. The film aims to reconstruct the journey, places and tragic experiences of the past.
Interviews with the members of the Ukrainian community from Transnistria expand the stories of the Roma survivors and transform an area nowadays apparently trivial in a place of anthropological value, memories and tears.
Festivals
- Wiesbaden goEast International Film Festival – Germany, 2014
- Nancy–Lorraine Film Festival – France, 2014
- Athens Ethnographic Film Festival – Greece, 2014
- Rasnov Film Festival – Romania 2014
- Verzio International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival, Budapest –Hungary, 2014
- Balkan Cinema Bremen – Germany, 2014
- Days of Ethnographic Film, Ljubljana – Slovenia, 2014
- DornArt – Romania, 2015
Awards
- Best Image Award, Astra Film Festival – Romania, 2013
- Best Film, Etnofilm Festival, Rovinj – Croatia, 2014
- Verzio International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival, Budapest – Hungary, 2014
