RNN / Filmmaker Melanie Spitta Wins Otto Pankok Prize
RomNews Network
Luebeck / GERMANY ( RNN Agency ) December the 5th, 1999
The 20,000 Otto Pankok Prize was awarded for the first time to German
filmmaker and publicist Melanie Spitta for her lifework.
The Otto Pankok Prize is given by the Roma Foundation, which was grounded in
1997 by Günter Grass to foster tolerance towards the Roma people. The prize
is given in remembrance of Otto Pankok (1893 - 1966), whose work drew
attention to ostracized minorities, particularly Sinti-Roma. Pankok was
Grass's teacher in the Düsseldorf Art Academy.
In 1938 the Spitta family fled from the Nazis to Belgium, where Melanie
Spitta was born in 1946. Out of the thirty members in her family, only six
survived the Holocaust. From 1949 on Ms. Spitta grew up in the Rhineland
where she experienced discrimination by fellow student and teachers.
Melanie Spitta worked togethor with the Munich filmmaker Katrin Seybold.
Togethor they have made four documentary films. She has also published
numerous essays in books, magazines, and has worked for television and
radio. She is currently working on a film, set in 1938, about the lives of
two Sinti families.
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