Katalin Bársony: The most of Roma are still struggling with issues like access to education and reclaiming former properties

For many years, director Katalin Bársony followed with her camera and her heart the efforts of young Nesmir Hasani to return from a Kosovo camp for internally displaced persons to his native Germany. 

 

 

From the first moment Nasmi looked into the camera and sent a message through our camera to his schoolteacher in Germany, I deeply felt the struggle of our main protagonist. Nasmi was a very special child, clearly lost in the refugee camp where I first met him, not understanding the Serbian language or much Romani. I was already familiar with the surroundings as a few years earlier I made a film on a related subject, “Trapped: The forgotten story of the Mitrovica Roma”. 

 

That short film features Nasmi’s grandmother. It was a privilege to talk with her, and listen to her and record her. In our culture, elderly Romani women hold most of the narrative treasures. The fact that I am a woman opened doors when telling her story. I could not imagine back then how long it would take to follow the story of Nasmi, her freshly arrived German-speaking grandson. To do justice to Nasmi's story, we needed to wait to see how he re-integrated to Germany. To capture long-term social transitions you need to be patient, sometimes wait for years. I want everybody to know that this story has a happy ending. 

 

When we started the film, we had no idea how the story would unfold. But I always knew it was a special story. Nasmi and his brothers made an amazing effort to help one another. Vedat had to act like an adult when he was still a teenager. The complicated legal circumstances that kept them apart were all just obstacles they overcame to reunite. In the end, after many years, the bureaucracy worked. The Dublin Procedure allowed the family to get back together and gave them the opportunity to stay in Germany. 

 

In the film we see the impact of the family's long effort to stay connected and to provide for the younger brothers. Vedat, the eldest brother, became an engineer in Germany and later worked as a quality process manager for Airbus. He reached his potential partially because he was able to stay in Germany and continue his studies, while his brothers missed 4 years of school stranded in a refugee camp.  

 

Nasmi, his mother and brother were placed in an internally displaced persons camp in Leposavić, although they were not internally displaced but deported from Germany, where the boys were born. Were they sent here because their grandmother was there, or is this common practice with deported Roma in Kosovo? 

Back in 2009, when Nasmi was forcibly repatriated along with his mother and brother, there was no other option for the family than to join their closest relatives in the IDP camp. Nasmi's grandmother met her grandchildren for the very first time. International organizations were against forced repatriation like what the Nasmi family experienced. They did not get involved in resettlement so as not to encourage the policy. This is how the family ended up in the IDP camp. 

 

So many homes were destroyed and statelessness continued to be a problem. IDP camps still hosted a great proportion of the community. It is really important to note that forced repatriation did not only affect the Roma community. For years, Western Europe saw an influx of Albanian and Serbian war refugees many of whom were also returned. In most of these cases, people were compensated and eventually reintegrated into society.  This has not been the case for Roma, most of whom are still struggling with issues like access to education and reclaiming former properties. 

 

Although the international community is talking about the problems between Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo, the Roma are rarely mentioned. In fact, they are often ignored, as if they were collateral damage, even they involve tens of thousands of people. What, in your experience, is the most effective way to talk more, and more objectively, about this problem? 
 

I am a foreign filmmaker and investigative journalist. I spent years trying to understand why and how it was possible that Roma ended up in an IDP camp situated near a toxic lead smelter. There was very little information about the Roma Ashkali and Egyptians communities' suffering during and after the war. Information and evidence often remained un-contextualized or labeled and stigmatized by all involved. There has been very little work done to expose or understand the effect of the war on the RAE community. 

 

Likewise, next to nothing has been done in terms of reconciliation or recognition of the sufferings of the community. The investigation of Kosovo Specialist Chamber is finally starting to contextualize this story. I am happy it could be a part of our film. A lot has been written about the Balkan Wars, but the suffering of the Roma people has remained largely hidden from public view. By presenting the story of Nasmi and his family we hope to encourage more open discussion. This will foster an understanding of the perspectives and needs of the Romani inhabitants of former IDP camps, people greatly affected by policies that they rarely have a hand in designing. 

 

Perhaps it should have been asked at the beginning, but could I ask you to clarify what the "Suno" in the title of the film refers to? 

A successful producer once said to me “You cannot use Romani as the title of a film meant for international distribution.“ I replied that our language would never be used in cinemas if we were not brave enough to use it in outreach strategies, books, poems, podcasts as well as film titles. 

So I am glad for the opportunity to teach you a word in our language, Romani “Suno” means dream. Suno Dikhlem means “I saw a dream“. Filmmaking is a team effort. This years-long effort would not have been possible without the incredible creative team behind the film. They made the dream of this film a reality, they made it possible to innovate, experiment and research and film in many different countries. We all are grateful for being able to start the international release circuit of our film and, we never gave up on and it gives us real joy that we were able to realize this Dream.