Gypo
Jan Dunn/Britain/2006/video/98min

Charting the relationship between a British working class family with a Romany-Czech refugee girl, this film explores the worlds of Helen, a house-wife in a monotonous and depleted marriage looking after her teenage daughter's baby, Peter, the bigot of a husband who bitterly despises his poverty, and Tasha, who escaped with her mother from an abusive father. In three narratives, Gypo introduces the fragile world of families living under threat. Helen and Tasha develop an unstable and unstoppable connection, while their similarly dysfunctional past threatens to tear them apart. A film that aims to find hope amidst uncertainty, and happiness in the shadow of despair, this remarkable film is Britain's first official "Dogme 95" film, meaning it was shot without the usual trappings of a feature film production. Totally hand-held, scriptless, and shot in existing and available light, the grittiness and starkness of the story is enhanced by these Dogme filmmaking techniques. An amazing film, truly not to be missed.

Winner of Outstanding Achievement in Production from the British Independent Film Awards.