(Ontario‚ 2011, 99 min) A People Uncounted starts with the premise of discrediting the romanticized version of a gypsy life, dance, music and no cares in the world. The Roma people, commonly called gypsies, are misunderstood for a variety of reasons, a major one being their persecution over the years including near eradication during the Holocaust (about nine per cent of the Roma people survived).
People Uncounted balances information from scholars with stories from Roma men and women themselves who survived the Holocaust. These survivors catch the heart sharing moments of fear and horror from when like “pencils pressed together” in cattle cars they were “evacuated” to concentration camps to the horrors endured there.
A poignant and silent visual walk through a death camp, from barbed wire to ovens punctuates the final third of the film.
While the focus is on the Roma and the Holocaust it makes the point that the Holocaust was not an anomaly, and leaves the viewer thinking about humanity and society in general.
6:45 p.m., Wednesday Feb. 8, Capital 6 Theatre
