A People Uncounted (Aaron Yeager 2011) : Canada

Reviewed By Bethany Burns. Viewed at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, Metro Theater

To show us something about ourselves, not to place blame.

The Roma stand alone as the biggest minority in Europe. Don’t be fooled by mainstream media.

What comes to mind when you think of a gypsie? a thief? a temptress? a musician?

Do you see children in concentration camps? Or families of 12 living in a 2 bedroom apartment?

Do you see a minority of people who have never been allowed to own land in Europe? Who are harassed by the police and severely beaten, tortured and outcast by society?

Did you know the word gypsy was created in the same sense as the word nigger?  Or that there is a different connotation between spelling it gypsy and gypsie?

Have you ever been forced to eat the flesh of another human being? Or been treated with such injustice it diminished your will to live?

This is the plight of the Roma. The journey of a people so persecuted that 90% of them were exterminated in during the Holocaust. This film ignited in me the desire to never again persecute another human being on the basis of my own misunderstanding of their culture. It encouraged me to seek out the truth, in every manner of life.  It opened my eyes to a truth that has been hidden from me my entire life.

To truly grasp the experiences of these people, is a dark place in which i hope to never find myself. The people in this film were asked to recount a time in their life that resembled hell on Earth. The footage so powerful and raw it will bring you to tears. My only recommendation is to see it for yourself. My words could never do justice to the experiences these people have t share.

If you are ready for your eyes to be opened wider than you ever thought possible, don’t hesitate. I am forever touched by seeing what can come of such a horrific tragedy, and inspired to be more than just another human being who thinks she has it all figured out.