Invited by a mysterious friend, a film team sets out on a journey into a hidden Yenish Europe that stretches from dusty banlieus in France to the forests of Carinthia. Told by the voices of young and old Travellers, a kaleidoscopic panorama of their lives unfolds: Diverse people relate to each other, bound together by their love of freedom but also by deep wounds from the past. Their otherness is mirrored and reflected not least in the exchange between the filmmakers and the Yenish.
Zurich: 6-25-24, 7.30pm, Pädagogische Hochschule Zürich, Lecture and Discussion on Yenish Life today with excerpts from «Gadjo – A journey into Yenish Europe».
Mössingen: 5-31-24, 8.15pm, Lichtspiele Mössingen.
Zürich: 5-30-24, 5.15pm, Kino Toni, ZHdK, with Q&A.
DAS FILMFEST in Prague has officially selected «Gadjo – A journey into Yenish Europe». The festival presents a fine selection of films from Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Producer Frank Matter will attend the screening:
Saturday, October 21st, 7.30pm, Kino Atlas, Prague, further details.
Schwyz: Friday, August 25th, 9.00pm, Kino Schwyz. Tickets
Lucerne: Sunday, August 27th, 11.00am, Bourbaki 1. Tickets
Basel: Monday, August 28th, 6.00pm, kult.kino atelier. Tickets
Chur: Tuesday, August 29th, 7.00pm, Kino Chur AG.
St. Gallen: Wednesday, August 30th, 7.30pm, Kinok. (SOLD OUT)
Zurich: Thursday, August 31st, 8.30pm AND 9.00pm, Riffraff 3 and 1. Tickets
Berne: Friday, September 1st, 8.00pm, Kino Rex. Tickets
Wattwil: Saturday, September 2nd, 8.00pm, Kino Passerelle. Tickets
Wädenswil: Wednesday, September 6th, 7.30pm, Cinema Schloss. Tickets
Winterthur: Friday, September 8th, 7.45pm, Cameo. Tickets
Männedorf: Sunday, September 10th, 11.00am, Kino Wildenmann. Tickets
St. Gallen: Sunday, September 10th, 10.30am, Kinok. Tickets
Gelterkinden: Monday, September 11th, 8.15pm, Marabu. Tickets
Odeonair: Saturday, July 22nd, 9.30pm, Brugg. Tickets
Moonlight Cinema: Wednesday, August 9th, 9.15pm, Ziegelhofareal Liestal. Tickets
Xenix Openair: Wednesday, August 16th, 9.00pm, Zurich. Tickets
Thursday, 5-4-23, 20.30h, Rio 2 (international premiere with the filmmakers)
Friday, 5-5-23, 18.00h, Gasteig HP8 Projektor (with the filmmakers)
Sunday, 5-7-23, 11.00h, City 3
Saturday, 5-13-23, 14.30h, City 3
Saturday, 04-22-23, 20.15h, Usine à Gaz 2
Thursday, 04-27-23, 10.30h, Grand Salle
Tickets via the festival’s web page.
«Meet the protagonists» – Aperitif with the protagonists and the film team:
Saturday, 04-22-23, from 7pm – Court of Usine à Gaz, Rue César Soulié 1, Nyon
International Panel on «Yenish Life Today» with representatives of the Yenish and activists from France, Switzerland and Austria:
Sunday, 04-23-23, 12.00h, Théâtre de Marens (Route du Stand 5, Nyon)
What is it like to live as a Yenish in today’s Europe? Where can the Yenish culture develop? What are the obstacles and what are the possibilities? Which spaces are open to the Yenish, which remain closed?
With:
Maria Dufermont, Yenish and protagonist in the film «Ruäch», Annemasse (F)
Isabelle Gross, Yenish, activist and protagonist in the film «Ruäch», Annemasse (F)
Isabella Huser, Yenish and writer, Zurich (CH)
Heidi Schleich, writer, linguist and activist Innsbruck (A)
Simone Schönett, Yenish, writer and activist, Villach (A)
Uschi Waser, Yenish and president of the «Naschet Jenische» Foundation (CH)
Moderator: Marcel Bächtiger
A film by
Andreas Müller, Simon Guy Fässler, Marcel Bächtiger
A soap factory & 8horses Production
in co-production with SRF Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen, SRG SSR
Produced by
Frank Matter & Simon Guy Fässler
Directed by
Andreas Müller
Co-directed by
Simon Guy Fässler
Edited by
Marcel Bächtiger
Cinematography
Simon Guy Fässler SCS
Location sound
Andreas Müller
Production coordinator
Loredana-Nastassja Fernández
Commissioning editor SRF
Urs Augstburger
National coordination SRG SSR
Sven Wälti
Video Post-production
8horses
Sound mix & design
Patrick Becker & Dominik Avenwedde, Nurton
Titles design
Studio Krispin Heé
Poster art work
Alberto Vieceli
Website
Klaus Affolter, bytes & bones
Additional camera
Andreas Müller, Lionel Rupp, Mika Lanz, Silvan Hillmann
Colour grading
Simon Guy Fässler, Roger Somm, Patrischa Freuler
Post-production assistant
Michael Hess
Editing assistants
Fabienne Koch, Vicky Ramsay, Hae-Sup Sin
VFX
emd3000 GmbH,
Eugen Danzinger
Trailer
Gisela Weibel
Produced with the financial support of
Bundesamt für Kultur (BAK), Schweiz
Kulturförderung Kanton St.Gallen
Fachausschuss Film und Medienkunst BS/BL
Zürcher Filmstiftung
Kulturfonds SUISSIMAGE
Media Desk Suisse
Ernst Göhner Stiftung
Heinz E. Toggenburger, Winterthur
Stadt St.Gallen
Jubiläumsstiftung der Schweizerischen Mobiliar Genossenschaft
Alexis Victor Thalberg Stiftung
SWISSLOS/Kulturförderung, Kanton Graubünden
Katholische Kirche im Kanton Zürich
Ortsbürgergemeinde St.Gallen
Gemeinde Küsnacht ZH
Born in Winterthur in 1975. In 2002 he graduated with distinction in directing at the ZHdK. His diploma film «Joshua» (2002) won numerous international awards and was nominated for the Swiss Film Award as well as the European Short Mélies d’Or. In 2004 he began to deal intensively with the historical case of Klara Wendel and with the history and present-day reality of the Yenish. This resulted in, among other things, «Ruäch» (2023). In 2012 he founded the Cine-Club Perla-Mode in a collective with 5 artists, which invited the director of the legendary film «Reisender Krieger» (1981) in March 2014. From the conversation Müller had with him at the Cine-Club, the documentary portrait «Christian Schocher, Filmmaker» (2015) was created, co-directed with Marcel Bächtiger. In the works are the feature film project «Die Wahrheit der Klara Wendel», produced by Amka Films, as well as the Fast Track winning project «Doppelgänger» (Doc./Fic.), which he is realizing in a collective with Silvan Hillmann and Emanuel Signer.
Simon Guy Fässler works as a freelance cinematographer for fiction and documentaries in Europe and worldwide. As a founding member of the film development and production collective 8horses in Zurich, he directs and produces his own and other people’s film projects. He has traveled to all continents for documentaries, gaining insight into many cultures. Feature film projects have taken him to European countries such as Italy, Germany, France, England and Austria. Since graduating from the Hochschule für bildende Künste in Hamburg, where he studied Visual Communication in the classes of Wim Wenders and Fatih Akin, his base has been in Zurich. His camera work for the feature film «Aloys» by Tobias Nölle earned him a nomination in the competition for Best Debut Camera at the Camerimage Festival – and won him the Swiss Film Award for Best Cinematography in 2017. Simon Guy Fässler is a member of the European and Swiss Film Academies and the Swiss Cinematographers Society. For a complete list of Simon Guy Fässler’s work, please visit the corresponding pages on IMDB or Crew United.
Born in 1976 in St.Gallen, Switzerland. 2002 Diploma in Architecture at the ETH Zurich. 2017 Dissertation at the Institute for History and Theory of Architecture (gta), ETH Zurich. Works, researches and publishes where film and architecture meet. Author, director and editor of various documentaries. Since 2014 lecturer of «Spatial Concepts in Film and Architecture», ETH Zurich, since 2019 lecturer at HSLU. Since 2015 editor of the magazine Hochparterre. 2018 Curator of the «Salon Suisse» at the Venice Architecture Biennale.
Frank Matter, born in 1964, got into filmmaking in 1992. A year later he moved to Brooklyn, NY, where he has been working for many years as a director, producer and writer. After returning to Basel in 2006, he founded the film production company soap factory GmbH (soapfactory.ch). He has produced and directed numerous award-winning films.
The Yenish are a group of people with their own language, culture and history. They are members or descendants of a population with a traditionally travelling and probably mostly semi-nomadic way of life. They mainly live in Switzerland, Germany, France and Austria, but also in other parts of the world. Their total number is estimated at several hundred thousand. In Switzerland alone there are about 35,000. The French spelling is Yéniche, the English Yenish; they are sometimes called Gens de Voyage or traveller until today. In Austria the Yenish are also called Karrner, Dörcher or Laninger, in Central Switzerland Fecker, in Eastern Switzerland Kessler or Spengler. Jenisch is the self-designation.
An essential common characteristic of the Yenish is the language. Linguistically, it is an idiom whose structure is based on the language of the majority society, with words from Romanés, Yiddish and Romance languages. Large parts of the vocabulary originated from a creative play with words from the surrounding language. Some of the Yenish vocabulary found its way into dialects and even into standard languages. Often Yenish is compared or equated with Rotwelsch, although Rotwelsch was probably only an «invention» by the authorities and never existed as a language. Since 1997, Yenish has been protected and promoted in Switzerland as a territorially non-bound language.
Traditionally, many Yenish people are engaged in itinerant and peddling trade, trading scrap metal, antiques and recycling goods in general, the basket trade, fixing stove plates and pans, or working as knife grinders or musicians. Meanwhile, however, Yenish people are working in all kinds of professions.
An important part of the Yenish culture is a travelling way of life. The topic is complex and controversial. The history of the travellers has been a history of exclusion since the beginning. In the late Middle Ages, non-sedentary people were ostracized by the aristocracy. The aristocracy fought nomadism because it was hard to control travelling people – the nomads were considered to be particularly freedom-loving.
The fate of the Yenish in Switzerland is revealing. In the 18th century, the non-sedentary were registered in «rogue lists». In the 19th century, in the course of the founding of nation-states and the ensuing demarcation of borders, settlement in Switzerland was now linked indispensably to the possession of a «Heimatschein» («Certificate of origin»), a kind of residency permit which enabled the official criminalization of the non-sedentary way of life: The cantons set up police corps whose main task was to ward off «foreign beggars». While the applicable laws in Switzerland were different from canton to canton, travellers generally were picked up by cops during «beggar sweeps» and expelled to other cantons. However, there were also many settled Yenish whose «certificate of origin» was not renewed by the authorities and who were forced to become travellers as a result. Others settled under social pressure, including families of well-known musicians such as the Wasers and Kolleggers. In 1851, the law against homelessness in the newly founded Swiss Federal State was double-edged: Although all Yenish were granted Swiss citizenship, they were also forcibly assigned to a place of citizenship, and the itinerant lifestyle was made a punishable offense. It was therefore also a re-education and disciplinary measure. Many settled down in order not to attract attention and to be able to continue their professional activities. Often, however, these activities required travelling. Thus, many Yenish were forced to live in a gray area on the edge of legality.
In the 20th century, exclusion, discrimination and persecution increased even more. In Switzerland, Yenish families were persecuted from the 1920s until the early 1970s by the «Hilfswerk Kinder der Landstrasse» (officially posing as a charity to rescue neglected children), which belonged to the Pro Juventute Foundation. The «Hilfswerk», directed by Dr. Alfred Siegfried, pursued the goal of cutting off Yenish children from their origins. With the approval of the government, more than 600 children were taken from their families and placed in foster homes or foster families. Everything Yenish was to be eradicated. Siblings were separated from each other and placed in different families or foster homes, young people were locked up in institutions. Rape, forced deportation to psychiatric institutions and sterilization are well documented. Entire families, from the grandparents to their present-day descendants, were traumatized. Almost every Yenish family was affected by the «Hilfwerk»’s activities. In 1972, the journalist Hans Caprez reported, in the magazine «Schweizerischer Beobachter», about the removal of children and the inhuman operations of the «Hilfswerk». Eventually, public pressure caused Pro Juventute to dissolve the organisation in the spring of 1973. But there was never any criminal prosecution of those responsible for the misdeeds.
Far too little present in the collective memory are the persecutions that Yenish endured in the Holocaust. Like the Jews, Sinti and Roma, they were persecuted and deported and killed in concentration camps. Efforts are underway to establish a culture of remembrance of these crimes.
As a result of the revelation of the crimes committed by the «Hilfswerk Kinder der Landstrasse», the Yenish organization «Radgenossenschaft der Landstrasse» was formed in Switzerland which played an important role in the reassessment of the historical events. The recently deceased writer and Yenish activist Mariella Mehr acted as its spokesperson, eloquently addressing the authorities and demanding apologies and reparations. The «Radgenossenschaft der Landstrasse» publishes its own magazine, the «Scharotl».
There are other organizations that work for the recognition of the Yenish as a people with the rights of an ethnic, cultural and linguistic minority. In German-speaking Switzerland, these are the foundation «Naschet Jenische» or the «Fahrende Zigeuner-Kulturzentrum», in French-speaking Switzerland the «Association Jenisch-Manouche-Sinti (JMS)», the «Association Yeniche Suisse», the «Association Mouvement des Voyageurs Suisses (BSR-MVS)» and the «Citoyens Nomades». Albert Barras acts as press spokesman of the travelling people for French-speaking Switzerland. And May Bittel acts already for a long time as an expert for the Travelling People in the Council of Europe. In Switzerland, the Yenish have been recognized as a national minority since 1997 and 2016 respectively.
With reference to Switzerland, the Yenish in Germany and Austria are also fighting for their recognition. In the 21st century, various organizations of the Yenish have emerged in these countries, such as the «Zentralrat der Jenischen Deutschlands», the «Verein der Jenischen in Singen», der «Jenische Kulturverband» and the «Verein zur Anerkennung der Jenischen in Österreich und Europa». In Austria, Romed Mungenast was an important pioneer. The Yenish association «schäft qwant» acts as a transnational association for Yenish cooperation and cultural exchange. In Tyrol, the association «Initiative Minderheiten Tirol» also works to make the Yenish culture and way of life visible.
The Yenish, Sinti and Roma are often mentioned in the same breath, but their cultures are clearly different. The origin of the Sinti and Roma is assumed to be in Northern India and today’s Pakistan, respectively. Their languages, Romany and Manic, are derived from ancient Indian Sanskrit. The Yenish, on the other hand, are local: the Yenish families in Switzerland are usually of Swiss origin, Yenish families in Germany originate from German areas, etc. The Sinti arrived in Europe after the Middle Ages, where they came into contact with the Yenish. It is not uncommon for Yenish and Sinti families to have become associated. The term «Travellers» for the Yenish, Sinti and Roma was introduced to replace the word «Gypsy», which many consider discriminatory (although many Yenish also use the word «Gypsy» as a self-designation). The term «Travellers» is misleading, however, as the majority are sedentary. It therefore makes sense and is in accordance with the European Minority Protection Agreement to refer to the various ethnic groups as they call themselves: as Yenish, Sinti and Roma.
Compiled and quoted from thata.ch, jenisch.info, an article excerpt by Stefan Künzli „Jenische in der Schweiz“, Brigitte Baur „Erzählen vor Gericht“ and de.wikipedia. org/wiki/Jenische.
Franz Hohler
Michael Sennhauser, Sennhausers Filmblog
Ysabel Fantou, DOK.fest München
Yannick Bracher, outnow.ch
Karolina Sarre, Filmbulletin
soap factory GmbH
Frank Matter
Loredana-N. Fernández
Pfarrgasse 11
Postfach
CH–4019 Basel
www.soapfactory.ch
film(at)soapfactory.ch
Mischa Schiwow
Lea Link
+41 44 488 44 22
www.prochaine.ch