JAISALMER AYO! GATEWAY OF THE GYPSIES Reviews

From Russia: POVOLZHSKA ROMA
ROMANI NATIONAL CULTURAL AUTONOMY

603137RUSSIA NIZHNIY NOVGOROD
TROPININA STREET 3/10
00(78312)171920

To whom it may concern:

As a representatives of more than 10.000 Romani community members and based in Nizhniy Novgorod, Russia. We are happy to state that Melitta Tchaicovsky and Pepe Ozan have been good friends of our families and community.
We believe that their documentary Jaisalmer Ajo! fills a gap in the understanding of Roma history and Roma characters. Various and surprising parallels can be traced from the nomads professions and their way of life that reflect in many Romani communities today.

Further more, it was a soul touching experience for us Roma in the screening, to witness something very close to the journeys of our forefathers. We wish this document could be seen by all the Roma in the world.

Edouard Chiline,
Vice president of the Romani cultural autonomy “Povolzhska Roma”
Nizhniy Novgorod, Russia, 2004

Review by Branka Pazin,

Manager Project for "Filmography of Roma movies and documentary","Rom e.V." Koln, Germany.

The documentary "Jaisalmer Ayo! Gateway of the Gypsies" shows a journey through Rajasthan, the land which ethnologists and linguists, as well as the Roma (Gypsies) people themselves, consider the country of their origin.

The filmography research conducted by Rom e.V. Cologne during the last two years has shown that there are almost no documentaries concerning the origins of the European Roma citizens. Until now, we could only find 3 films dealing with this subject. ("La Danse du Serpent" by Sergio Mandelo about the singer Gulabo Sapera of the Kalbelya caste, a short videoclip about Kalbelyas for tourist purpose – "Suva Devi is dancing with a snake" (3 min.) and the shots of a concert in Poland with Gulabo Sapera).

"Jaisalmer Ayo" is the first documentary which presents different nomad castes in detail. Representatives of the castes talk about their daily life, their way of surviving in the desert, their different activities and work and about their customs and traditions.

The means by which the art of survival and the self-confidence of these people is presented creates the feeling of timelessness in the audience and the past and the presence of these people seem to melt. This impression is reinforced by overwhelming colorful shots of the desert-landscape and its proud inhabitants. They also give an understanding of the spiritual dimension of the life in the desert.

The trust and the joy of life that the nomads show to the filmmakers is a testimony of the mutual respect and the friendly atmosphere between them for the period of 7 months in which the filmmakers lived with these people.

This documentary opens a door that enables us to cast a view into the old and new world of the Rajasthani nomads. Provided with this information, music and theatre scientists, linguists, ethnologists will be able to ask new questions.

Branka Pazin

Review letter to the Rajasthan Studies Group Network (Columbia University) USA

by Robert Thomas Rosin ( Professor Department of Anthropology)
Sonoma State University.
Since Charles Sheftel's query is to a Rajasthan studies network, let me bring to our joint attention the video released in 2003 by the filmmakers and artists Pepe Ozan and Melitta Tchaicovsky called "Jaisalmer Ayo!" through ARNETWORK Productions (www.artnetwork.com/JaisalmerAyo).

I was consulted during the final editing of their work and find their film a vibrant introduction; alas, but a distillate to savour the taste of diversity among musical performers and entertainers, as well as craft workers in western Rajasthan.

Indirectly the film highlights the role of ethnicity and caste in the preservation, transmission, and even reinvention of tradition. One gets a brief taste of the globalization of audiences, as the tourist trade is worked by some gifted Kalbelia dance and song performers in Jodhpur.

Thread on a story line about the possible origins of the peoples known as "gypsies" in the west, the film has some wonderful footage on performing artists from a range of castes, Bhopa,Manganiyar, Kalbelia, etc. with Ghadiya Lohars blacksmiths added in for their mystique as wanders as well..

While many of the musical renderings are soul stirring, with some fine displays of virtuosity, these excerpts are short in duration, somewhat staccato in their arrangement, offering as it were, but a tantalizing taste of the musical, song, and dance repertoire available. The disembodied authoritative voice in the film is kept almost to a minimum; instead, Padmi Shri Komal Kothari makes a brief speaking appearance, as well as do a number of local researchers and activists, such as Nanda K. Sharma, Desert Culture Center, Jaisalmer, Punita Singh, Dept of Art and Culture, Gov. of Rajasthan, and Bahar Dutt of the Wildlife Trust of India. The film producers, furthermore, have the grace to include in the credits the names of the multitude of performing artists they have taped: e.g. Sunita and Kamela Kalbelia, Ala Baksh and Bhome Jhardhal, Iqbal Khan Manganiar,Jodhpur, Arjun Bhopa, and Kuda Khan of Barmer, etc. I would imagine that there is some fine, fuller length material to be rediscovered some day in the Ozan and Tchaicovsky's studio archive in San Francisco.

From
Carolien Klep, programmer filmprogram Festival Globalisering (Holland)

Dear Tchaicovky/Ozan,

For a national festival on globalisation in Amsterdam the Netherlands I am looking for films on the effects of that development on national affairs.

In your film "Gateway of the Gypsies" that effect shows nicely, for it is not concentrated too much on problems but showing the culture and the changing of the situation and how the people deal, or aren't able to deal, with that. I saw your film in Rotterdam International Film Festival (IFFR), and was very impressed.

The festival will contain a debating program, workshop program, a cultural program amongst which a filmprogram. The filmprogram will be show in a theatre opposite to the festival building, in two rooms for about 200 persons. Our website is www.festivalglobalisering.nl but I'm afraid it is in Dutch.

I hope to have informed you properly, but I'd be glad to answer any of your questions. Also of course I hope there are possibilities to show the film in the festival.

kind regards,

Carolien Klep
Programmer filmprogram Festival Globalisering

From Andrea Pócsik (Hungary)
Program Organiser Synchron /Szinkron International Human Rights Documentary Festival

Dear Pepe Ozan and Melitta Tchaikovsky,

On behalf of the 1th edition of the Synchron /Szinkron International Human Rights Documentary Festival, we would like to ask for your kind permission to inlcude the film JAISALMER AYO! GATEWAY OF THE GYPSIES (2004) to the festival program. We would greatly appreciate your assistance regarding the presentation of the film at the Synchron Festival.
Synchron is a festival organized by the Open Society Archive at Central European University which shall take place in Budapest, Hungary, on 9-12 November, 2004. In the framework of the festival around 100 films and videos from all over the world shall be presented and in our first edition we will focus on the representation of Romany people and their culture.
Thank you for your kind attention to this letter,

Respectfully yours,
Andrea Pócsik
Program Organiser

Letter by Dr. N.K. Sharma, founder and director of the "Desert Cultural Center and Jaisalmer Folklore Museum", Rajasthan, India.

Thank you very much for your kind letter along with the video tape of your film "Jaisamer Ayo!, Gateway of the Gypsies". There is an excellent work on the Kalbelia, Jogi, Banjara, Gadodia Lohar, Manganiyar, Bhopa and other nomadic people of Rajasthan. Also you have done an excellent background music, dance, introduction and videography.
This documentary film will be a historical document for future generations, to learn about nomadic peoples in the village areas. We wish great success for this film and also for your future projects. I look forward to hearing from you again.
Yours sincerely,
N.K.Sharma.