Film Screening: Latcho Drom

Electric Eye presents First of the Month Films

We’re pleased to welcome filmmaker Tommy Hyde, who will share a sneak peek at his latest project before our screening of Tony Gatlif’s Latcho Drom. It will be a rocking, musically-inspired double bill. Dancing encouraged!

“A difficult-to-categorize masterpiece… The pulse is so infectious that you may feel like dancing.” —Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader

Shot in the glorious widescreen panoramas, Latcho Drom (translation: “safe journey”) follows the thousand-year migration of the nomadic Romani people. Beginning in Northern India, they trek through Egypt, Turkey, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, France, and Spain. At each location, they connect with the local Romani communities and celebrate their journey and their kinship over incredible, energetic music. Capturing both continuity and diversity from region to region, almost entirely wordlessly expressed through their music and dance, the film highlights their joy in the face of struggles. Great Algerian-born French Romani filmmaker Tony Gatlif said about Latcho Drom, “I wanted to make a film that the Roms could be proud of, a film that wouldn’t make a slideshow of their misery. I wanted to write a song of praise to these people I love.” Long out a print and only passed around on poor-quality bootlegs, Latcho Drom has been recently been revived and rediscovered as a lost treasure.