Jaba

When asked to describe his documentary Jaba, film student Andreas Bolm says it is "a film that is as rough and poetic as its characters." The carefully framed 16mm images present a portrait, sometimes dreamy, other times harsh and realistic, of the life of Zoli and his family. Zoli spent some time working as a chinchilla skinner in Denmark. In the beginning of the film, he has just returned to his parental home in Jaba, Hungary, one of the poorest regions in Europe. His Roma relatives hardly manage to get by on the proceeds from their cattle and their jobs as day labourers. Without accompanying comment or music, we watch them as they drink coffee in the simple kitchen, work the land, and smoke a lot of cigarettes. Zoli's life comes to a complete halt; he has no prospect of finding a job, so he spends his days lying in bed and drinking beer. His lethargy even reaches the point where he falls asleep while changing a flat tyre. The Cannes Film Festival made an exception when it selected Jaba for its Cinéfondation section, which is usually reserved for fiction works. Not that amazing, considering the large number of scenes that are dramatised. After carefully observing the family, Bolm, who lived in Hungary as a child, devised some scenes in which the protagonists play themselves. (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam)