"Luník IX" - the film no one wants to see?

In 2009, Canadian film producer Dana Wilson turned to us at the Bystrouška Recording Studio with a request for support for her work on a documentary film entitled “Luník IX”. She explained that she was making a documentary at the Luník IX housing estate in Košice, Slovakia, where 7 000 Romani people are living in housing designed for only 4 000.

We didn’t know much about the project at first. However, it soon became apparent that Dana and director Michelle Coomber were not filming propaganda about the unbearable living conditions at Luník IX and the Romani question. The film was about the local nursery school, which is an enclave of happiness and children’s innocence in a joyless concrete jungle. Bystrouška therefore decided to support the project by providing technology, helping to find sound engineers, and giving valuable advice to the two filmmakers.

Dana and Michelle gradually succeeded in getting enough support from EU funds, the management of the nursery school, and local pro-Roma organizations to make the documentary. In the end, leading Slovak documentary filmmaker Peter Kerekes and Slovak Television decided to also support it so it could be completed.

Since the road to making this film was very long, we decided to ask producer Dana Wilson for details of the journey. There is no doubt that “Luníx IX” offers a unique perspective on the Romani topic.

Q: How did “Luník IX” start? Where did you get your inspiration?

A: I was traveling through Košice in preparation for our previous project, “Trial of a Child Denied”. During that trip I met Kristina Magdolenová of the Roma Media Center. Kristina suggested I stay for a few weeks and visit the Romani community in eastern Slovakia. She confided to me that she was already very tired of journalists who travel to Košice to film or photograph the Romani community and local problems and stay only one or two days – or in the worst-case scenario, only a few hours. She was very willing to help me get to know the people there better. She has been working with them for more than 10 years.

During my stay, she showed me the nursery school. It was one of her favorite places and she was very proud of it. When we went there I had no idea where we were going, it was my first visit to Luník IX. She told me it would be a surprise. We parked nearby and walked through the main courtyard, past a barred gate of painted steel, and we entered the nursery school through these thick iron doors. As we walked into the classroom, I passed by the children’s artwork. All of the children suddenly stopped playing and greeted me in chorus – “Dobrý den!” Then we walked through a tiny labyrinth of rooms and emerged into the hallway that connects the three blocs of the nursery school on the main floor.

As I walked through the corridor, the weak lighting illuminated the steel plates that line it (instead of walls), and I was surrounded by children’s drawings and yarn creations, while their little voices rang through the space. It resonated. You can’t capture something like that in a photograph. At that moment I clearly saw that it needed to be filmed.

Q: When you decided to make a film about Luník, what other steps did you have to take?

A: I succeeded in raising money for the project and I brought Michelle and the crew to Košice. I convinced a friend to be the cinematographer and we borrowed most of the equipment from our supporters. Petr Novák and the Bystrouška studio were unbelievably willing to help and they found us a sound man who was just as enthusiastic about the work as if he had just graduated from school. You don’t see that much. The management of the nursery school and their staff gave us a great deal of support and helped us. It was really a punk filming from start to finish.

Q: Who else supported the project?

A: Since we received financing through a grant from EU Media Development and Screen, we were able to hire a Slovak cinematographer and interpreters. A few other people joined the team and gave us a new perspective on the children and their families.

Other people gradually joined us – editor Marek Sunik, who helped us contact producer Peter Kerekes, but at first he didn’t even want to hear about “another film about Lunik IX”. He grew up in Košice and he knew the local and international media have been interested in that topic forever. In the end, Marek succeeded in convincing him to look at our material, and thanks to that, Peter realized we were working on a completely different kind of film. He decided to become our co-producer, together with Slovak Television, and we hope the film will be distributed in theaters! It really is the product of the combined efforts of many people who helped us, but thanks to Peter the whole film was completed and broadcast on Slovak Television.

Q: How is a project like this financed? How long did it take to raise enough money to start filming?

A: A project like this one must be done with love from the very start, which in the documentary world is pretty normal. Filmmakers for the most part use their own resources to start filming and to collect enough material to interest broadcast stations, grant organizations and sponsors who then help complete the film. We filmed even though we didn’t feel like we already had everything we needed. In the end, the entire production lasted about three years altogether.

Q: How did local people accept the presence of the crew? Were they willing to speak with you?

A: The local people accepted us well, but that was obviously thanks to the nursery school staff, to a great degree, who became our liaisons. Two or three families were not open to communicating with us, but that was evidently because the image of Luník that the media has created has not been very friendly. However, some were naturally just shy. Also, after filming there over the course of three years, some people just got tired of talking to us all the time. However, most people were very hospitable, even though it isn’t always completely easy for people to let a camera into their lives for such a long time. Michelle and I did our best to accommodate them wherever possible.

Q: The film suggests that most of the adults living at Luník would prefer to leave. Why, in your opinion, do they stay?

A: I believe most people remain at Luník IX because they do not have any other alternative – or almost none. It has been their home for so long that it would be very complicated to just uproot themselves, get up and leave, especially when we consider that Romani unemployment in eastern Slovakia is a long-term problem. In short, it’s hard to move out without a job or money. Nevertheless, during the time we spent there, two families really did move away, one to Brussels and one to England. Given that Luník IX is slowly falling apart, these people sooner or later will have to find a solution.

Q: Do you believe it is really “other people’s fault” that the situation at Luník is so bad?

A: I don’t want to use the word “fault” to discuss Luník IX. I can explain the history of it a bit. As a result of early communist policy, the Romani community had become rather dispersed, living in small groups scattered all over eastern Slovakia. Luník IX was built during the 1970s and 1980s to address the lack of housing, and people were moved there from their rural habitations, which were then destroyed. However, the new apartment blocks, completely outfitted with concrete walls, running water and toilets, were a totally foreign environment for them. No one prepared them for such a change and they were basically forcibly evicted from the countryside. The countryside had been a free, natural environment for them, but they were moved into a concrete environment on the periphery of the town, and families who maybe had not gotten along well for years were suddenly forced to live right next door to one another as neighbors. From the very beginning it was basically an experiment to see how these people might survive in such an environment.

Q: Did you get an opportunity to establish any closer relationships with the locals during filming?

A: Michelle and I fell in love with the nursery school, and especially with the children whom we followed over the years as they grew. However, we had a bit of a language barrier with them. That’s why our deepest relationships were mainly cultivated with the management and the staff. Observing those people left us with great recognition of the work they are doing with the children – we have great respect for them.

Q: What is the aim of this project? Are you hoping to somehow help these people, or is this just a report about them? Has any improvement come about as a result of your documentary?

A: When working with communities on the outskirts of society I do my best to be as impartial as I can. I don’t think I went into this project attempting anything specific beyond filming “reportage”, documenting the children and their school. What attracts me to the Romani community, I believe, is their love of life, their lifestyle. I know it is very different from the Czech and Slovak lifestyle. There is something quite impressive about the Romani lifestyle. Because I am living in India now, I am seeing this more and more clearly.

I do see the general problems that exist in Košice and in eastern Slovakia and I definitely hope the situation will improve. Essentially, what I hope will happen at the nursery school is already obvious from the documentary, which is that the two groups are getting along together. The children there are loved and are led both to learn their own language and also to integrate into Slovak society. I also hope people will see another side of the Romani ghetto in this film, a side they are not used to seeing in the media. I would like the communities to tolerate one another and if this film helps change public opinion, I will be very happy. However, whether that has happened somehow, I really don’t know.

Q: Where will it be possible to see the film?

A: The film was broadcast on Slovak Television on International Roma Day, 8 April, this year and then it opened Košice’s first-ever documentary film festival, also in April. We have sent the film to several festivals and now we are gradually putting together the other places it will be screened.

Q: With respect to the making of “Luník IX” I once overheard someone say something that greatly impressed me: “It must be so hard to make a film that no one wants to see.” Do you think no one wants to see this film?

A: In all sincerity, yes, we were labeled as “just another Romani film” during the work on this project. That offends me a bit, but it is true that many people are making documentaries about Romani communities. However, the topics of documentaries can be so diverse that to lump them all together under the label of “Romani film” is just a testament, in my view, to how narrow-minded people are.

Some of these “Romani films” are being made because of the pressure being generated by the European Union and the Decade of Roma Inclusion program. Personally, I believe it’s brilliant that there is such an effort being made by filmmakers to understand what is happening. Going back to the label of “another Romani film” – I think people tend to look down on groups in their society that lead a different way of life, and they consider their superficial perceptions to be real insights into the problem of those communities.

I am concerned that our civilization today is being built upon just such superficiality, the kind embodied by brief news items, Facebook updates, simplified information. Documentary films do their best to contribute somewhat of a deeper understanding of various problems. I don’t like saying this, but I feel that people really want the Romani problem to just disappear, they don’t want it depicted in films. Sarkozy’s recent behavior has just exacerbated that way of thinking.

I believe that the more we see, the more we learn and the more we understand one another. We are then better able to to make viable decisions for the future.

Q: Is it hard to make a film no one wants to see?

A: As far as motivation goes, definitely not. However, as far as implementing such a project goes, someone has to take an interest in the film because the project has to be financed by someone. Finding those people is the greatest challenge. So far we have always succeeded. I believe the viewers for “Lunik IX” will also be found.