"TO FIND MYSELF AND SOCIETY"
Elmas Arus, 34, explained her reason for making the documentary as wanting to closely know the community associated with the term 'Gypsy,' which had negatively confronted her until her university years. She said: "Why were we different from the rest of society, and why were most of us poor? According to us, we were good people, but why were we defined as bad? Why did we take detours so our friends wouldn't see us when going to and from school? I felt the need to make this documentary to find answers to hundreds of questions and, in doing so, to find myself and the society I live in. Although I set out with these feelings initially, over time, the personal curiosity was replaced by the responsibilities the people in the places we visited placed on us. The subject was so deep and rich that it took a very long time to film."
WHY HALF?
"Half is a name that might evoke reactions from people, but our goal was to create some irony," said director Arus. She believes that the audience will also question themselves. "According to an old but still used phrase, the world's seventy-two nations are accompanied by the Roma as the seventy-two and a half nation. We chose this name to draw attention to the problems of the Roma, who are defined as the half nation in Turkey, and similar groups living like Roma, and to highlight how an unrecognized community can be so excluded without being known, prompting the audience to question themselves."
NO WRITTEN CULTURE
Arus noted that the Roma community is closed and lacks a written culture but mentioned an interesting observation during the filming process: "What's interesting to me is that the characters in the film, living in different regions of the country, knowing and narrating stories, legends, and negative judgments about themselves in the same way, despite never having met each other. This is because the community is closed, and there is no written culture. This really surprised me."
SHOWN AT FESTIVALS...
The film has been shown at many festivals both domestically and internationally. It has also been screened at universities, ministries, and in educational programs of many institutions working on Roma issues and continues to be shown.
HER THIRD FILM
Graduating from the Trakya University Edirne Vocational School of Radio and Television Broadcasting, Arus has two other films. "Göçün Türküsü" (2008) - This documentary tells the stories of Turkmens, who migrated from Khorasan to Anatolia, preserving their experiences and passing them down through generations (as songs, words, stories) and reaching the present day through oral history masters, Barak folk poets. "Dergâha Yolculuk" (2010) - This film describes the religious rituals, traditions, customs, and lifestyles of two semi-nomadic Abdal communities of Alevi-Bektashi faith during their days-long journeys from the plateaus.
Source: Sabah Newspaper
http://www.sabah.com.tr/Yasam/2013/10/13/cingenelerle-9-bucuk-yil
