Lecture: Why do we need to retell the Roma story now?

The film Tradaw (PL 2022), directed by Krzysztof Skonieczny and featuring Roma artist Małgorzata Mirga-Tas, is a cinematic response to its predecessor The Gypsy ROMANI Camp (PL 1955) by the renowned Polish documentary filmmaker, Władysław Ślesicki. The latter is a propagandist work about a Roma guitar player that perpetuates various Roma stereotypes and is told by an unknown narrator. Mirga-Tas’ iteration, told in a combination of Polish and Romani, takes a very different approach: she is both the narrator and protagonist of her own story and, by extension, she symbolically helps the guitar-playing protagonist regain his voice. The presentation juxtaposes Władysław Ślesicki’s documentary – a Roma representation by a non-Roma male director – with a new vision created by Roma artist Mirga-Tas. The focus is on the absence of Roma-owned and Roma-endorsed cinematic representation.