Children of the Open Road
In 1939, after barely escaping the Nazis, a Gypsy family returns to Switzerland only to be torn apart by racial persecution in the benign guise of children's welfare. This fictionalized story of Jana, an eight-year-old Gypsy girl snatched from her parents and consigned to a life of orphanages and bleak foster homes, is based on a little-known chapter of Swiss history: From 1926 to 1972, the state-supported Pro Juventute, a children's aid foundation, forcibly removed some 700 Gypsy children from their families, in order to sever the ties with their culture and assimilate them to a "better way of life." The underlying aim was to preempt a new generation's caravans from following their nomadic traditions along Switzerland's country lanes.
Directed by Urs Egger · Written by Johannes Bösiger
Cast
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Jasmin Tabatabai Jana Kessel -
Andrea Eckert Theresa Kessel -
Hans Peter Korff Dr. Schoenefeld -
Nina Petri Fräulein Roth -
Wolf-Dietrich Berg Heinrich Hottinger -
Herbert Leiser Paul Kessel -
Mathias Gnädinger Roger Kessel - Noemi Steuer Andrina Kessel
- Johanna Karl-Lory Wahrsagerin
Make it a double feature
3h 26m together
Children of the Open Road
Tod eines Keilers
Both from Urs Egger.
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