Director Thomas Pollock brings a crucial, overlooked chapter of history to light with Rozkvet, a powerful WWII feature focusing on the Romani Holocaust.
Shot independently in Northern Ireland through Lamb Films, the project shines a spotlight on resistance, family, and survival under Nazi occupation.
Ahead of its world premiere at the Belfast Film Festival, we sat down with Thomas to discuss the vital importance of authentic Roma representation and the creative hurdles of filming a period piece.
Rozkvet brings the persecution of Roma people during the Holocaust into a WWII story about resistance and protecting family. What first drew you to this history, and what made you feel it was a story you needed to tell through cinema?
When I first read Andrew’s script the immediate thing that drew me in was its sense of humanity without being over-detailed with historical facts focusing more on its central characters. Cinema has the power to stir emotion, entertain and communicate messages to a wide audience; but it also has the power to inform and educate which makes it feel like the natural way to tell this story.
The film was independently self-funded through Belfast-based Lamb Films and shot entirely in Northern Ireland, despite depicting occupied Czechoslovakia. What were the biggest creative challenges in making Northern Ireland convincingly represent wartime Europe, and were there any locations or production limitations that unexpectedly worked in your favour?
One of the biggest challenges was making our locations authentic including trying to make rainy Ireland appear like a European summer. We shot a lot of our film at the Ulster Folk & transport museum which helped us control this and with adding some more period-accurate props, furniture and other set dressings helped capture this.
Productions at this scale always bring numerous challenges, but with the limitation of the film being set in the 1940s meant we had to be even more creative and decisions about every scene, character and shot were carefully decided ultimately creating a faster and smoother shooting process.
The decision to cast Roma actors in all Romani roles is an important one. How did that principle shape the casting process, your work with Katarina and the way you approached the characters’ experiences?
With the lack of Roma representation on screen globally we felt it was essential to have the Roma characters be played by Roma. This doesn’t just give authenticity on a surface level, but they were able to bring perspective and depth to the characters based on their own lives or stories past down to them.
What added this extra layer was that many of Katarina’s relatives play the characters in the film, who gave unique insights in developing their characters.
Historical films about the Second World War often focus on familiar narratives, while Romani persecution has received comparatively little attention. How did you approach presenting this history in a way that felt truthful without reducing the characters to symbols of suffering or turning their experiences into a history lesson?
One of the most important things for us approaching this story was to avoid previous mistakes of misrepresentation, stereotypes and prejudice that has come before. Many aspects of the story, characters and setting are based on stories Katarina has heard through friends, family and extended family which helped inform its historical accuracy.
While this story involves fictional characters, their basis is very real and based upon these stories. We also felt it was important not to just to show suffering and misery with what the Roma experienced but to also show the bravery and courage they had during this time. Our characters are not just symbols; they represent the experiences of ordinary people in extreme circumstances and the sacrifices they had to make to survive.
Making a multilingual period feature with limited resources requires difficult decisions about where to spend time and money. Which aspect of the production demanded the most ingenuity, and was there a moment when you wondered how you were going to pull off something that had initially seemed achievable on paper?
The most difficult decisions came down to locations and any large props or vehicles required. Possibly the biggest challenge was pulling off a make-shift Nazi-occupied facility which is the most seen location in the film. Once we found our location we decided to do a lot of set construction. From using recycled materials to borrowing and bargaining new ones, it was ultimately going to be a time-consuming part of production.
The art department, myself and even the other producer all got hands-on in the construction and painting of the set to make sure we had it ready in time.
With Rozkvet premiering at Belfast Film Festival, what would you most like audiences to take away from the film beyond an awareness of a history that has often been overlooked? And has making it changed the kinds of stories you want to tell next?
What I would like people to take away from the film is that even in tumultuous and challenging times that standing together whether it’s with your family or community is the most powerful thing you can do.
Making the film has influenced what stories I would like to tell in the future and leaning in to a focus on overlooked parts of society, character dramas and working-class stories. It has also made me realise that I love historical drama and while difficult to make it is an area I can see myself exploring many times in the future.
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