Io Rom romantica: The Discovery of the True Self in Laura Halilovic’s Accented Cinema

Abstract

Taking into account Hamid Naficy’s framework on “accented cinema”, this paper examines the modes of representation employed by Romani filmmaker Laura Halilovic in her film Io Rom romantica, a comedy about an emerging Romani filmmaker searching for her true identity in a society that constantly rejects migrants. The theoretical framework against which the female protagonist is analyzed include, on the one hand, authors such as Donald W. Winnicot and Grace P. Conroy, interested in the development of the migrant psychology in relation to their environment, and, on the other, film theorists such as Hamid Naficy whose work offers a taxonomy from which to examine diasporic cinema from the perspective of migrant directors.