We stare out from places that are usually just stared at.
We use languages some people say are dead.
We tell stories you probably haven’t heard.
Damian La Bas (Roma poet, filmmaker and journalist)

Rolling Film Festival and its 3rd edition is welcoming you again to the screenings of stories you probably haven’t heard. The line-up of over thirty-two films will illustrate Roma culture, history, art scene, life celebration but also misinterpretation, social injustice faced by Roma people spread around the world.

While everyone is trying to adapt or even “better” to assimilate to “others” culture and leave their stories far behind, feelings are telling us differently, to let go the differences, and to celebrate life as individual, to let the memories tell the history, and the present will be past.

With this we are opening the festival with one of the most remarkable documentaries ever, by Tony Gatlif, Latcho Drom, a winner of “Un Certain Regard Award” of Cannes Festival 1993, Special Citation of the National Society of Film Critics 1996 and Grand Prix of Montreal 1997. This film does not tell, but it shows the unspoken people finding a better place to live, traveling from Rajasthan to Persia, through the Balkans and western countries, they being expelled again and again, and they carry on.

This is when the history becomes present – nowadays society – and yet history is to be learned.

Rolling’s international guests include Bob Entrop from the Netherlands, a filmmaker dedicated to Roma culture and activism; Damian La Bas, a Roma filmmaker, poet and journalist from UK; Dordje Cenic and Dominic Spritzendorfer from Austria; Katalin Bersony from Hungary; and others.

As a special program, we dedicate a night to great people who have dedicated their lives to Roma films, and are not among us anymore: Katrin Seybold and Melanie Spitta (The False Word). A friend of Katrin Seybold, Ivot Stodolsky has agreed to join us and speak in her name.

The Second special program is Cikore Filmja, which we have for the second time. This year, we have reached more youth in different locations in Kosovo introducing them to filmmaking, and they are introducing us to “their views”. Cikore Filmja has also traveled to Slovenia this year with the support of Luksuz Produkcija, the follow-up of “Roma Dream” from 2011.

Last but not least, the Rolling Youth Selection Committee has also been created by young people from Kosovo to discuss and debate about Roma films, with the guidance of Una Hajdari as debate leader. They have watched over 30 films, short and long, and made special selection of one night of films to be shown at the National Theatre of Kosovo.

Films are always my favorite part, but we also like music. The Audience, and Cikore Filmja Jury awards of Rolling Film Festival will be presented on the last night, 16th of December, during the concert of great young Roma musicians.

We wish you a joyful festival
Sami Mustafa – Artistic Director