Children of the Open Road (1992)
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.
Released: Jan 01, 1992
Runtime: 117 minutes
Stars: Jasmin Tabatabai, Andrea Eckert, Hans-Peter Korff, Nina Petri, Wolf-Dietrich Berg, Herbert Leiser
Crew: Urs Egger (Director), Johannes Bösiger (Writer), Lukas Strebel (Director of Photography), Barbara Hennings (Editor), Kathrin Brunner (Art Direction), Sabina Haag (Costume Design)