Jožka

Still from the film "Jozka". Long shot. Green-grey color scheme. The woods, big pond in the foreground. Two men bow their heads in front of the water in respectful silence.

Audiodescription

Director: Hamze Bytyçi

Czech Republic, Germany, 25 minutes, 2017, documentary

Fallen ill after many years of working in mines, Jožka has devoted his life to the fight for a better, more just society and against constant discrimination of Roma people in the Czech Republic. The disrespect towards the Roma minority is represented by a large-capacity pig farm built on the site of the former concentration camp near Lety in South Bohemia in which hundreds of Roma lost their lives under the Nazi regime – including half of Jožka’s wife’s family.

Film screening dates: 23.09.2021 — 26.09.2021

Director

Hamze Bytyçi works as a media and theater pedagogue, director, and performer. In 2012 he co-founded the International Romani Film Commission and since 2017 Hamze is founding director of the Romani Film Festival AKE DIKHEA? In his films and his work as chairman of the association RomaTrial, he brings up social and political topics such as deportations of Roma people from Germany or the discrimination of the Roma minority, and supports young underprivileged people, e.g. in the form of the film school “Balkan Onions”.

Selected filmography: Memory Boxes, They Only Take The Criminals Away (both 2019), Jožka (2017)