Gypsy Davy (film) explained

Producer:Rachel Leah Jones
Philippe Bellaiche
Starring:David Serva Jones
Narrator:Rachel Leah Jones
Cinematography:Philippe Bellaiche
Rachel Leah Jones
Runtime:96 minutes
Country:Israel

Gypsy Davy is a 2011 documentary film, directed by Rachel Leah Jones, and co-produced by Jones and Philippe Ballaiche.

Synopsis

The film is narrated by the director, Rachel Leah Jones, as a letter to her father. Her father is "David Serva," who was born David Jones, in Berkeley, California. Described as a "white-boy with Alabama roots", he went on to become a well known flamenco guitarist- the first American to have a successful career in flamenco in Spain. Jones' mother, Judith Jones, was a "Brooklyn-born Jewish girl" who became a flamenco dancer. The two started a family in Berkeley, California, in the early 1970s.

Serva quickly abandoned his wife and baby daughter, and during his life and career, he amassed a total of five wives, and had children with each of them. Through her own memories and those of his other children and wives, in Gypsy Davy Jones creates a personal and political portrait of a man, and examines the legacy of an artist and his family.

Production

Gypsy Davy was in the making for about a decade. Over this time, producer-director Rachel Leah Jones filmed her father, who had left her in infancy. She also interviewed her own mother, and her half-siblings and their mothers, combining these interviews with archival footage and her own narration.[1]

The film was created with support of the Israeli New Fund for Cinema and Television.[2]

Release

The US premiere of the Gypsy Davy was at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.[3] The film had previously screened in Israel in 2011 at the Jerusalem Film Festival.

Select festival screenings

Reception

In his mostly-positive review, Screen Daily reviewer Tim Grierson writes that in spite of the main premise of a famous musician's infidelity being unsurprising, "director Rachel Leah Jones’s Gypsy Davy takes that truism and wrings something thought-provoking and melancholy from it." Though Grierson dislikes the narration, he praises the film's music and finds the family-member interviews to be the strongest point of the film.[4] In his Variety review, Dennis Harvey calls the film "as engrossing as a flavorsome, twisty literary novel", lauding both the "colorful characters" and the music.[5] Calling Gypsy Davy "an interesting story and great personal work", Jonas Weir, in Vox Magazine, sums the work up as "a portrait of a man who led an irresponsible life that hurt a lot of people and his daughter’s coming to terms with who he is. David Jones doesn’t seem like a completely rotten man, just a man who has done some completely rotten things."[6]

John DeFore, on the other hand, in the Hollywood Reporter, calls the film a "self-obsessed personal voyage" that is uninteresting to anyone not involved in the story.[7]

Awards

!Year!Award!Category!Result
2011Cinema South Film FestivalJuliano Mer Khamis Documentary Award
Documentary Edge Film FestivalBest Culture Vultures
2012Doc NYCViewfinders Grand Jury Prize
Sundance Film FestivalJury Award: World Cinema - Documentary
International Women's Film Festival In RehovotBest Documentary

See also

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: 'Gypsy Davy' Writer/Director Rachel Leah Jones talks Flamenco and Filmmaking. 2014-03-31. True/False Film Fest. en-US. 2019-09-08.
  2. Web site: NFCT English Gypsy DavyNFCT English. nfct.org.il. en-US. 2019-09-08.
  3. News: 2012 Sundance Docs in Focus: GYPSY DAVY. 2012-01-11. what (not) to doc. 2019-09-08. en-US.
  4. News: Gypsy Davy. Grierson. Tim. 25 January 2012. Screen Daily. 8 September 2019.
  5. Web site: Gypsy Davy. Harvey. Dennis. 2012-01-31. Variety. en. 2019-09-09.
  6. News: T/F Review: Gypsy Davy. Weir. Jonas. March 3, 2012. Vox Magazine. September 9, 2019.
  7. Web site: Gypsy Davy: Sundance Film Review. The Hollywood Reporter. en. 2019-09-09.