In her video installation created for Le Bas' exhibition at the Secession in Vienna, the artist turns to the transcendental religious universe of antiquity, when the bonds between the living and the dead were still palpable. For the artist, this work grew out of a personal experience of loss: the death of her grandmother, the person she felt most attached to and her stalwart supporter. Incipit Nova Vita is about a caesura, a questioning, a fresh start.

Director: Delaine Le Bas ● Camera: Lincoln Cato, Delaine Le Bas, Hera Santos ● Editor: Laszlo Farkas ● Sound: Justin Langlands ● Music: Laszlo Farkas Mixing of Original Sound & Justin Langlands ● Cast: Delaine Le Bas, Hera Santos ● Producer: Delaine Le Bas

The 7th International Festival of Romani Film AKE DIKHEA? opens with the feature film “Three Thousand Numbered Pieces” (directed by Ádám Császi, Hungary 2022, 93 minutes, in Hungarian with English subtitles). With a portion of biting humour, the film parodies the art world, which to this day exploits the life stories of marginalised people and presents this as enlightenment or even support in solidarity. 

This year's patron, Minister of Culture Claudia Roth, will open the festival with a video message. This is followed by greetings from the Artistic Director Hamze Bytyçi, Co-Curator Lisa Smith and as well as the director of the European Film Academy (EFA) Matthijs Wouter Knol. After the screening, the film director Ádám Császi and the main protagonist Kristóf Horváth will be available for a talk with the audience.
Afterwards, we cordially invite the participating festival guests to exchange ideas, eat, drink and celebrate: because the evening will continue in the Grüner Salon with a Meet & Greet with the European Film Academy and an opening party with reception!

AVAZYA FILM LAB 2023 is an exclusive mentoring workshop with the aim to connect Romani and marginalized filmmakers with leading experts in film. The selected film projects receive tailored consultation in relation to their project’s specific needs.

Selected projects:

Didikai (UK)

Writer & Director: Jack Lilleywhite

With his grandfather's funeral postponed by the police, a young Romany boy reluctant to accept the loss of a loved one is forced to confront his identity in a landscape of cultural erosion. Determined to prove himself to his community, he must choose between tradition or assimilation.


Wolf ́s Lair (CZ)

Producer: Alica Sigmund Heráková

In the enigmatic cabin nestled amidst the mountains, seven students find themselves compelled by unknown entities to confront a bone-chilling choice. This narrative draws inspiration from the 1986 film by Věra Chytilová and Daniela Fischerová, weaving its own adaptation of the tale.

Mentors:

Kristóf Horváth
Marike Muselaers

From the 40-year screening ban of a unique documentary film with rare testimonies of Sinti Holocaust survivors from the early 1980s. To 50-year-old footage of Independent Romani filmmakers own family members and community available to them to critique and use in their own artistic practice at the cost of £6,000 – per minute of the footage.

These are just few examples of how social power relations play a decisive role in archives. They shine a light on the structural and inherent violence towards marginalised people within film archives. The presumption in the sole right of ownership of images and voices exclude marginalised people from accessing them and preserve distorted information created from racist perspectives.
This panel will take a critical look at the historical representation of Sinti and Roma in a German television context and will also explore how contemporary independent filmmakers from marginalised perspectives are re-claiming and dealing with archives in their own practice and in creating their own counter narratives aimed at preserving collective cultural memories.

With:

Vera Lacková
Director and Producer of “How I became a Partisan”

Ufuk Cam
Co-Author and Archive Producer of “Love, Deutschmarks and Death”

Monika Preischl
Archive producer, researcher and founding member of the German Researchers and Archive Producers GRAP e.V

Moderation :

Maisha-Maureen Auma

In 2023, AKE DIKHEA? teamed up with the European Film Academy (EFA) to create an exclusive opportunity for Romani filmmakers to establish connections with top short film festival programmers, discuss their current short film projects and gain insights into the programming and editorial focus of the respective festivals.

Romani filmmakers can book 5-minute-long one-on-one meetings with the following festivals from the EFA festival network: Locarno Film Festival (Switzerland), DokuFest (Kosovo), Go Short – International Short Film Festival Nijmegen (Netherlands), Kurzfilm Festival Hamburg (Germany) and Tampere Film Festival (Finland).

The meetings take place online, up to five sessions can be booked. Pre-registration was required.