When the Road Bends . . .
tales of a Gypsy Caravan

Background Narrative:

"You cannot walk straight
When the Road Bends..."
- romani proverb

The Future:

"Roma Rule - Gypsy music is escaping its 'ghetto' in Romania to become a worldwide sensation that some fans liken to the birth of jazz.
...Gypsy music is stirring audiences around the world. Top bands from Central Europe are playing upwards of 100 foreign gigs a year. Filmmakers are hungry for their scores. Critics have likened the outpouring to the birth of jazz in the U.S. in the 1920s. Says Simon Broughton, co-editor of The Rough Guide to World Music: 'The music does what music should do. It tears at your heartstrings and gets your blood racing.' " TIME Magazine

The Past:

In 1999 the first "Gypsy Caravan" tour presented America with musical ensembles from six countries. Forty musicians came together as strangers but the chemistry and music grew between them on tour, forging a bond that was magnetic for all to behold. They blended in a grand finale on stage, they shared a tour bus, and on late nights in hotels across America they swapped stories and instruments from around the globe. Foreign musicians spoke to each other easily in Romani, the language of Gypsies worldwide. They also spoke with American Romani visitors and fans. They exchanged family tales and customs, musical tricks and plentiful jokes. And yet their mutual knowledge of a shared culture and language also determined an internal kind of caste system that soon carved out a clear hierarchy even amongst compatriots. Many onlookers remarked that it was a criminal shame not to be making a film about this magical moment of unison.

Overwhelmed by positive response, the New York tour organizers, World Music Institute, decided to do it again and the Gypsy Caravan tour returned in Fall 2001 (with some groups from the last tour and a few new ones as well). This time we were ready with our cameras.

& Now... [to be updated soon!]

To create a luscious concert film, the concerts are shot on film from multiple angles and our D.P. is the great American filmmaking pioneer Albert Maysles (Gimme Shelter, Salesman and many more by The Maysles Brothers). Stage performances are captured on film (16mm) to convey the rich and mercurial beauty of music that dives from energetic thigh-slapping to the depths of Cante Jondo. We shot backstage on video (miniDV & DVCam), for practical reasons and also to preserve the difference between the vision we have of people on and off stage.

But this is not just a concert film or a road movie: it is also an adventure behind the scenes with the Gypsy people. Intercut with the lush footage of the joyful, singing, dancing performers, we visit their home villages to see the artists preparing for concerts, working to feed the family and returning to the everyday grind. This also affords us a chance to explore the reality of Romani life around the world - where Gypsies have an almost universal reputation as dirty thieves and roguishly romantic singing nomads. This is a rare chance to see beyond that, because most of us know nothing about the real people. Even their name is a misnomer; they were labeled "Gypsies" because of a mistaken belief that they came from Egypt. In fact, their true origins are in India and many prefer to be called "Rom," which is their own name for themselves, derived from their ancestral language.

Director/producer Jasmine Dellal's last feature documentary, "AMERICAN GYPSY: a stranger in everybody's land", told the tale of an American Romani man seeking justice for his honor and his people through the U.S. court system. It was broadcast on American television (PBS's POV series) and won international acclaim, press attention and festival awards, as well as being championed by many Romani people. (For more details see: www.americangypsy.com).

WHEN THE ROAD BENDS... is a lyrical film, relying on visual and musical imagery to immerse us into new worlds. There is no narration. Political conclusions are left for the audience to draw. We give them the beauty of performing Gypsy musicians who are cheered by high-priced packed houses. And we also give them the contrast with, for example, the mud huts of a Romanian village where Romani children cannot afford to get to school - or when they do go to school they are routinely sent to classes for the mentally disabled. Performing for an audience of thousands, we see an old man on stage singing a ballad. He drags his fingers along an intentionally broken string on his violin, creating an eerie growl that hushes the crowd and then brings them to their feet with applause - and then we meet the musician's family. They are in a stark shack beside the only road in a Romani village where many people want to return to Ceaucescu's regime "because at least under communism EVERYONE was forced to work so we couldn't be discriminated against when it came to employment." Most audiences will be enchanted by both scenes because both the concert and the village are picturesque, but it will be enlightening to see them together and learn that the musical Gypsies in New York are the same as the impoverished, politicized peasants of Europe.

MAHARAJA (Maharaja movie clip) is a group which combines leading musician tribal castes from the desert of Rajasthan in northwest India. Maharaja has performed at hundreds of concerts worldwide and dazzled audiences with an energetic hybrid of Indian music, acrobatics and dance. Founded in 1995 (originally named 'Musafir'), this group gathers musicians, poets and shamans who in Rajasthan would not play together, but here create an exciting fusion of North Indian folk, classical, Arabic, sufi trance and crossover styles that create an eclectic aesthetic. On the first Gypsy Caravan tour, they discovered the richness of flamenco and have since begun a side project, Maharaja Flamenca, which performs on this tour with Antonio El Pipa.

ANTONIO EL PIPA FLAMENCO ENSEMBLE (Pipa movie clip) from Andalucia, Spain, is one of the most traditional flamenco groups performing today. Born in Jerez, Antonio comes from a family dynasty of Gitano artists, among whom are his grandmother, the legendary Tía Juana la del Pipa (now deceased) and his aunt Juana la del Pipa, who dances in this group and sings with a gravelly voice that feels as raw as centuries of pain. Their 'Gypsy Passion' dance production brought Antonio and his aunt Juana accolades from critics in the USA and Europe, and they continue to perform around the world and to the toughest flamenco audiences - in Spain.

ESMA REDZEPOVA (Esma movie clip) from Macedonia, has been performing for mor
 40 years an

z

s the musical "Queen of the Gypsies." Her impassioned voice easily reduces audiences to tears, and then gets them dancing in the aisles. Esma is accompanied acoustically by the accordion, clarinet, trumpet, tarabuka and double-bass. A glamourous diva by appearance, Esma has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for her Rom-related political work. With her late husband she adopted 47 children and then trained them to earn a living with music. Her basement became home to a 24-hour Romani TV station reporting on everything from new Romani pop hits or community birthdays, to Macedonia's 5,000 Romani refugees from Kosovo.

FANFARE CIOCARLIA (Fanfare movie clip) is an eleven-man brass and woodwind band that comes from the village of Zece Prajini, near the Romanian-Moldavian border. Their music combines Romanian, Gypsy and Turkish influences, even elements of klezmer. The group's three CDs have enjoyed huge success, and they have appeared on festival stages all over the world, as well as playing on film soundtracks for artists such as Goran Bregovic and Emir Kusturica. "We're one of the last, and we're the fastest of them all!" says the group's leader, Ioan Ivancea. Fanfare Ciocarlia truly deserves the title of the fastest and perhaps the craziest of the Romani brass bands.

TARAF DE HAÏDOUKS (Taraf movie clip) is a vibrant group of Romanian musicians whose repertoire includes Romanian wedding music, violin ballads and accompaniments to jazz, classical and rock. They have performed with Yehudi Menuhin and the Kronos Quartet, played a prominent part in Tony Gatliff's acclaimed film "Latcho Drom" and appeared alongside Johnny Depp in Sally Potter's "The Man Who Cried." On stage, 12 musicians deftly pass back and forth musical creations that appeal to a range of music lovers far beyond World Music and Fusion fans. But however strange their new found fame may seem to themselves, their music stays true to itself, keeping a strange "edge", an undefinable charm. It seems to be getting better with each concert and new album, and they elicit ever more praise from the press. The oldest lead violinist is 79, there are others in their 60s and 20s, playing cymbalum, accordion, flute and powerful lungs. When Taraf return to their home village, the economy is boosted because modest concert earnings allow them to put their children in school and buy a few local goods, which is enough to keep the village going until the next tour paycheck. Clejani is a Romani village of musicians who were once in constant demand for weddings, but dwindling tradition has taken its toll. Now international tours are the goal. Taraf de Haïdouks (literally "band of brigands") is probably the best known of Gypsy musicians today.

DIRECTOR, PRODUCER:
Jasmine Dellal directed, produced, wrote and edited her first feature documentary, "AMERICAN GYPSY: A Stranger In Everybody's Land", which aired in 2000 on PBS's prestigious POV series. It also had an arthouse theatrical release and won awards at film festivals worldwide (www.americangypsy.com). Dellal grew up in England and spent much of her childhood with grandparents in India. After studying French & Spanish at Oxford, she did a Masters at the University of California at Berkeley where she made two short films, "She Says" (on American women and feminism) and "In His Own Image" (a profile of a homeless photographer, which won a student Emmy). She also worked for two years on "Black Is...Black Ain't," the final film by acclaimed filmmaker Marlon Riggs, to whom "American Gypsy" is dedicated. Dellal currently runs Little Dust Productions (which she founded in New York & London) and she is producing a documentary by Oscar-nominated Roko Belic ("Genghis Blues"), on Californian teenagers whose education about WWII inspired them to break a cycle of ghetto violence and failure, in favor of a college education, good jobs and a freer life.

DIRECTORS OF PHOTOGRAPHY:
Albert Maysles - USA, Romania
In 1999 Eastman Kodak saluted Maysles as one of the world's 100 finest cinematographers. Along with his late brother David, Albert Maysles created "direct cinema," the distinctly American version of French "cinéma vérité." Considered a genius in his field, Maysles' 40 year career includes such classics as "Gimme Shelter," "Salesman," "Grey Gardens," "Primary," "What's Happening! The Beatles in the USA," "The Rolling Stones Altamont Concert," and most recently "Lalee's Kin: the story of cotton" (Sundance 2001 Cinematography Award). For more info see: www.mayslesfilms.com

Alain de Halleux - Europe:
Alain de Halleux is an acclaimed Belgian director and photographer who brings his beautiful sense of composition and dynamic images to this film. With more than ten documentary and fiction films under his belt, de Halleux has won an array of prestigious awards including the Prix de la Qualité in France, Special Jury Prize of the Festival International de Bruxelles, and International Critics' Prize at Flanders - this for his most recent fiction work, "Pleure Pas Germaine", which garnered high praise for its distinctive visual style. He holds INSAS qualification in film directing, and received the Belgian Vocational Prize for photography. His photojournalism has taken him from Afghanistan to Lebanon. De Halleux is currently shooting and directing a documentary about an ambulance worker facing the challenge of being a Moroccan immigrant in Belgium.

FURTHER PRODUCTION TEAM NOTES:
Through work on her last film, Jasmine Dellal made contacts with Roma who are eager to work on this project. Thus, we have Romani translators and production crew from New York and Los Angeles, to Macedonia and Madrid. This is an extremely rare level of collaboration between Roma and non-Roma which lends the film an original and intimate perspective. Among many Roma there is an understandable skepticism about filmmakers, a fear that all films about Gypsies will only show the crime or the exotica. It is a rare privilege and a challenge to have been trusted to do more than that.

• All Clips - 4 mins (8MB Quicktime-maybe too big for a modem)
• Esma (2MB Quicktime)
• Maharaja (2MB QT)
• Antonio El Pipa (2MB QT)
• Fanfare Ciocarlia (2MB QT)
• Taraf de Haidouks (2MB QT)

PERFORMANCE

Esma Redzepova in concert in Brussels.
by Alain de Halleux

Juana la del Pipa dancing flamenco with Antonio el Pipa on the Gypsy Caravan concert tour.
by Albert Maysles

Maharaja dancer Harish Kumar by the lake of his hometown, Jaiselmer, Rajasthan.

Taraf de Haidouks' lead violin is played by Nicolae Neacsu.
photo by Carlos Muñoz-Yagüe

Taraf de Haidouks' Cacurica leaving the stage in Brussels with his accordeon.
photo by Carlos Muñoz-Yagüe

Fanfare Ciocarlia brass band with Oprica Ivancea on stage for a soundcheck.
photo by Carlos Muñoz-Yagüe

Fanfare Ciocarlia performing in New York at the famous Joe's Pub.
photo by Margarita Jimeno

Fanfare Ciocarlia musicians Ioan, Monel, Ionitsa and others on the train tracks of Zece Prajini in northern Romania.
photo by Alain de Halleux

"Fanfare junior" playing in a field in Zece Prajini while being filmed by Albert Maysles (camera) and Marius Stanescu (sound).
photo by Alain de Halleux

Juana la del Pipa sings at her church in Jerez de la Frontera when not on tour with Antonio el Pipa.
photo by Dan Uneken

Feria de Jerez provides a backdrop for this little girl and her family to run the parking lot... and play with the camera with director, Jasmine Dellal.
photo by Dan Uneken

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