Soundwalk Collective presents
SONS OF THE WIND
Recordings from the Mahalas of 10 countries that share banks on he Danube.
A sound poem of the Danube and the Roma people.
The Danube is a mirror of the Indus, where the Gypsy people were born. Its banks contain the memories and the contemporary history of the Roma, and of their exodus to Europe. Their ascent along the Blue River, from east to west: from its tentacular delta in the Black Sea, to its spring in the Black Forest of Germany, where it is only a brook.
The process of collecting sound imprints along the fertile silts of its banks results in the words, songs, tales, and music of the Gypsy people. A culture that is marked by accents of guitars, accordions, violins, and voices in cappella. The rustle of the long skirts of the women, the random access memory of a people who carry their future according to the jolts in their history – from the settlement forced in the 60s, to the deterioration in the standard of living after the fall of the communism.
To follow the endless road of exodus at the time in Europe which is believed to be without borders. The murmured, sung and cried story is always the one of the exile or the exodus.
“The Gypsy music is a cry of pain, an ancestral pain which comes from the soul of a whole people”, says the French Gypsy filmmaker Tony Gatlif. “It is the pure revolt, nothing is made, everything is shouted “.
A film by Stephan Crasneanscki
Director of Photography: Dasha Redkina
Editor & Special Effects: Teresa Pereira
Text: Virginie Luc