{"id":76,"date":"2014-01-09T20:54:23","date_gmt":"2014-01-09T20:54:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aleksandarpetrovic.org\/english\/?page_id=76"},"modified":"2025-06-17T10:47:47","modified_gmt":"2025-06-17T14:47:47","slug":"i-even-met-happy-gypsies","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/aleksandarpetrovic.org\/en\/filmography\/feature-films\/i-even-met-happy-gypsies\/","title":{"rendered":"I Even Met Happy Gypsies"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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(SKUPLJA\u010cI PERJA)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

“My lord, if you reincarnate me again after death,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let me be Gypsy.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let me choose one of the ways<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The way of joy that will make me a happy man<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or the way of death and a new encounter with you.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aleksandar Petrovic<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n
Production:<\/strong><\/td>Avala film, Beograd 1967<\/b><\/td><\/tr>
Screenplay:<\/b> <\/strong><\/td>Aleksandar Petrovi\u0107<\/td><\/tr>
Director:<\/b> <\/strong><\/td>Aleksandar Petrovi\u0107<\/td><\/tr>
Set Design:<\/b><\/strong><\/td>Veljko Despotovi\u0107<\/td><\/tr>
Cinematography:<\/b><\/strong><\/td>Tomislav Pinter<\/td><\/tr>
Art Director:<\/b> <\/strong><\/td>Nikola Raji\u0107<\/td><\/tr>
Producer:<\/b><\/strong><\/td>Vladislav La\u0161i\u0107<\/td><\/tr>
Choice of music:<\/strong><\/td>Aleksandar Petrovi\u0107<\/td><\/tr>
Music:<\/b> <\/strong><\/td>“Rino” (Olivera Vu\u010do)
Music selection:<\/td>Aleksandar Petrovi\u0107 <\/td><\/tr>
Cast:<\/td>Bekim Fehmiu, Olivera Vu\u010do, Velimir Bata \u017divojinovi\u0107, Gordana Jovanovi\u0107, Mija Aleksi\u0107, Rahela Ferari, Severin Bijeli\u0107, Etelka Filipovski, Milorad Jovanovi\u0107, Milivoje \u0110or\u0111evi\u0107 <\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Gallery:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Press Book Avala Film 1967.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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 \u201cThe film I Even Met Happy Gypsies will show you the life of Roma as it is.<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This film is not romantic \u2013 it is raw and beautiful, as is the life of Romas.<\/i><\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The songs you will hear in this film, you will hear for the first time, because they are the songs of Roma people from Vojvodina, rarely known.<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In their life, reality is linked to fantasy \u2013 these are free people\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I Even Met Happy Gypsies is the first film in which Roma speak their own language.<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The majority of these roles are played by real Roma \u2013 they do not play in this film, it is their film. They play out, so to speak, their own destiny. \u00bb <\/i>Aleksandar Petrovi\u0107<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Experience has taught me not to believe in films with so-called \u201cmessages\u201d; that is probably why my latest film \u201cI Even Met Happy Gypsies\u201d stays for me a simple piece of life. After we are done watching it, as it always happens in life, we are overpowered by a heap of associations, a special and imaginative polyphonous constellation of the life of Vojvodina Roma \u2013 the feather gatherers. What is essential to all that?<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think it best that everyone decides for themselves what their own message is, once they have faced the film. Personally, as the film\u2019s first spectator, it would be a nightmare of fantasy and reality for my heroes \u2013 the Roma that have lived there for centuries. And that is certainly why I chose them as a subject for this film. These people live a life of art; their tragic and desperately incomplete attitude towards life is the same as the relationship between art and life!<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By being on the outskirts of society, incomplete, constantly searching for something, they are close to the absolute! And right next to them is the mystery of death which creates for these feather gatherers a specific relationship towards religion; they are neither religious nor secular. To these unreachable pagans, religion is similar to the rest \u2013 a part of life: grand and horrible, tender and bitter, charming and revengeful, free and luring, exactly the way this film wants to show it.<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aleksandar Petrovi\u0107<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Plot Summary:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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This film, extremely lyrical, tells the tale of the Roma man named Bora (Bekim Fehmiu<\/a>), the feather-gatherer. Married to a woman much older than he, as is common with Romas, he is often away from their household full of children, ceaseless noise, and constant fighting. On his way to work, he meets a pretty young woman, Tissa.  Savage and wandering, she also avoids her home and her step-father Mirta who is brutal and aggressive. Bora and Mirta are rivals at work as much as they are with Tissa. To gather feathers, they split the villages and are both careful not to run into each other. Neither can stay away from Tissa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mirta arranges to marry Tissa off to a twelve-year-old boy, hoping that she will therefore stay his. Tissa rejects the young boy and throws him out of the house. After many complications and difficulties, Bora is finally able to free Tissa from her stepfather\u2019s grip. A monk named Paul marries Bora and Tissa in a small monastery. Tissa starts living with Bora\u2019s family as he continues his travels. This life is not enough for Tissa and is not what she expected; she runs away to Belgrade. She hopes to become a singer in a caf\u00e9 but she is left with only two choices: either she sings in the streets or she starts selling her body. Fed up with everything, Tissa goes back to Mirta\u2019s house. When Bora finds out, he rushes to Mirta\u2019s home and kills him, throwing his body in the river. The death of a Roma person doesn\u2019t mean much and no one will question or investigate anything. Months pass and spring arrives. Bora has spent a calm winter in the comfort of his home. However, once the ice melts, Mirta\u2019s body is found and an investigation begins. Bora leaves his house and disappears into the expansive plains, whose cruelty makes them that much more beautiful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs a child, I observed these people and found in them faith and irrationality.\u201d Alexandre Petrovi\u0107. \u201cWithout this moment of irrationality, there is no work, there is no art.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About the song Djelem Djelem:<\/b><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Already in 1964, during the filming of his short-film Record, Aleksandar Petrovic heard the song Djelem Djelem played by a Hungarian family of musicians, Lakatoch, and used it in the soundtrack for his film. Djelem Djelem found huge success with I Even Met Happy Gypsies and in very little time, the Romas adopted it as their anthem. Until the end of his life, when Petrovic would enter one of the many caf\u00e9s or restaurants in Yugoslavia where Roma orchestras would play, he would be recognized and the orchestra would immediately play Djelem Djelem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Olivera Vuco, who had the role of the caf\u00e9 singer who would sing the song, is an actress and professional singer who impressed Bruno Cocatrix, who invited her to sing at the Olympia in Paris. She held that spot for 72 days and wowed the press!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Improvisation of the famous Gyspy musician Chandor Lakatoch Djelem, Djelem:<\/i><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have roamed down many paths<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many paths, long paths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They beat my father, oh my mother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They threw me in cold water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh mother, what have you done with me?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You left your children as orphans,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two have died, one roams with no end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh mother, what have you done?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You left me alone on the roads,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pity me, mother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have roamed down many paths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I even met happy gypsies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Olivera<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aleksandar Sa\u0161a Petrovi\u0107, Bekim Fehmiju I Olivera Vu\u010do snimaju \u201cSkuplja\u010de perja\u201d (1967) <\/a><\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yugopapir PDF<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Awards, honors, festivals:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n