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Filmboxd

1992

Children of the Open Road

Directed by Urs Egger

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.

Duration

1h 57m

Released

January 1, 1992

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Cast9

  • Jasmin Tabatabai
  • Andrea Eckert
  • Hans Peter Korff
  • Nina Petri
  • Wolf-Dietrich Berg
  • Herbert Leiser
  • Mathias Gnädinger
  • Noemi Steuer
  • Johanna Karl-Lory

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