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Presented at the Tribeca Film Festival May 7, 2006. Presented by
Little Dust Productions in association with ITVS, Fortissimo Films,
FuWorks. Post: Rhino Post, Sound One, 701 Sound, Goldcrest.
Dedicated to The Decade of Roma Inclusion 2005-2015.
 Director
Jasmine Dellal has created a sweet road trip film for the World
Music Institute’s electrifying GYPSY CARAVAN, made up of 5 bands
from 4 countries, as it toured the US in 2001. It took five years to
edit the hours of performance footage and encounters between the
artists on the road with that of the musicians in their homes in
Romania, Macedonia, India and Spain. The musical styles range from
flamenco to brass band, Romanian violin to Indian folk but the
members of the caravan slowly come to appreciate each other as they
recognize the artistic gene they have in common. WMI Founder Robert
Browning appears in the film to explain that he had found that the
gypsies were largely ignorant of each others music and that he had
hoped that by putting these bands on the same tour that they could
discover how they could work together. For a producer dedicated to
presenting traditional, authentic music from around the world,
Browning confesses to the desire to enjoy the adventures of a
cross-pollinating biologist.
Call it sad and wild, humane and ecstatic, Gypsy music and dance is
proven in this film to be a fascinating phenomenon with increasingly
popular appeal. The musicians of the string-based Romanian Taraf de
Haidouks in the Caravan also appeared in Tony Gatlif's "Latcho Drom
(still my preferred film entre to the Gypsy culture) and "The Man
Who Cried," starring Johnny Depp who is interviewed here testifying
to their genius. The performances of the Caravan were sold out with
audiences traveling long distances to catch them.
Shot in part by documentary icon Albert Maysles, the film nicely
weaves the tales of the characters between their performances.
Flamenco dancer Antonio el Pipa from Jerez, Spain looks very elegant
and refined, far from the stereotyped impoverished, outlandish
gypsy. He appears with his legendary aunt, Juana, who turns 55 on
the bus tour. Juana makes no attempt to hide the fact that her
children and husband's involvement with drugs left her with nothing
but her music as a solace and a healing. Esma Redzepova, with a
magnificent voice and presence that gave her great fame in Macedonia
when only a young girl, talks with great contentment of her family
that includes 47 adopted children. Maharaja, a female impersonator
who manages to twirl in a huge circle around the stage on his knees,
unashamedly reveals his need to dance to survive. Poverty, pain, and
persecution all affected these musicians but not their cunning
ability to tap into their vital spirit and make you, the viewer,
bond with them. In this way, the film is quite pointed in its
unspoken attempt to set up the gypsies for a better future. May it
be so!
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