Lubo by Giorgio Diritti in Venice 80: true story of Jenisch nomads

Dafter the migrants of Matteo Garrone And Agnieszka Hollandafter the long treatise on castes by Ava DuVernay, Lubo Of George Rights – loosely based on the novel The Sower by Mario Cavatore – talks about the persecution of minorities going to Switzerland. That is, in the land of upright people and urban decorum. Here, between the 30s and the 70s, the government carried out a systematic attack on the nomadic Yenish population. By killing and abducting children through the national re-education program for street children (Hilfswerk für die Kinder der Landstrasse). Children lost and entrusted to orphanages, mental asylums, families in which there were low laborers.

Giorgio Diritti isolates the drama by focusing on the figure of Lubo (Franz Rogowski). A Janisch street artist who in 1939 was called up to the Swiss army, there were borders to defend from a possible German invasion. And when he returns, he discovers that his wife is dead in an attempt to prevent gendarmes from taking their children. At this point, Lubo, having recovered a huge sum of money, changes his identity and tries to find the lost children. Scouring Switzerland, making forays into Italy and Austria.

An extensive and protracted, painful and heartbreaking search, which the director controls and defends from all rhetoric. Keeping away excesses of melodrama, in favor of a heartfelt, correct, perhaps too correct, exposition. And what emerges is the enormous talent of Franz RogowskiGerman actor now at the cinema with Passages by Ira Sachs, previously also directed by Christian Petzold and Terrence Malick. With his crooked face, his wild eyes and a fairly exceptional command of Italian (in addition to the Jenisch language), Franz makes Lubo a painful and desperate character, calculating like Mr. Ripley but pure of heart. A civil conscience.

Lubo: the great persecution of the Yenish

For Diritti it is quite usual to work with small, often oppressed communities. How did the Jenisch population come to be? «My interest – says the director – in these groups comes from the fact that they are the mirror of the world, and their stories are universal stories. Then the children represent the future, and therefore it is essential to defend their identity and take care of it. And this episode, known through Cavatore’s novel, gave me a precise narrative urgency. Because we need to be careful when we attack identity and belonging. Things that today have come under threat again.”

Since this is a historical film with a lot of places to cover, Lubo it took a lot of time between planning and location. Which are real, original places, not reconstructed in the studio or on location. It was very important for Giorgio to work on natural data. And in fact the film about the nomad is a nomadic film in itself, a film of landscapes, towns, rivers. With 120 people wandering from place to place.

An unknown story

But is this story remembered in Switzerland or not? «Yes – says historical consultant Michail Jager – education is also done, but it took Switzerland 80 years before officially apologizing. And this past has weighed heavily for a long time, and continues to weigh: destroyed families, children who counted for nothing, less than nothing.”

Kidnapped by Bellocchio at the cinema months ago and today this film. Is there an assonance? For Rights «There is certainly something that resonates in common sensitivity, something necessary. And that is, what freedom must be defended. Unfortunately it is easy to fall into exclusion, and perhaps man has limits in understanding diversity, arrogating to himself the right to establish how one should be, to set rules. But the difference is a value, and today we are immersed up to our necks: children dying at sea, sent home, killed.”

Franz Rogowski and Valentina Bellé did not know the history of these nomads. «I am German – says Franz – and I wanted to understand the nature of these nomads, because it is not clear where they come from; today there are still 30/40 thousand of them in Switzerland, and for me they represent a new perspective on the Second World War. Bellé added that «child abductions of this type still occur today in Ukraine. 16 thousand Ukrainian children have been deported to Russia, and are being re-educated in the same ways as the Yenish children.”

For historical consultants who worked on the Lubo – as well as a Jenisch representative present at the conference who was tired of the film –, the hope is that the film will be a positive event for Switzerland. Also because the country defends its image very well of great seriousness and ethics, and holding a mirror up to him can only do him good.

The Jenisch people

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