Death of actress and musician Rona Hartner revealed by Tony Gatliff in Gadjo Dilo

Popular singer of the electro-Balkan scene, who was revealed by filmmaker Tony Getliff in the brilliant Gadjo Dilo, which was her first film role and for which she won the Bronze Leopard for Best Actress at Locarno in 1997, also nominated. César of the most promising actress, Rona Hartner, died of cancer in Toulon, where she lived for ten years. He was 50 years old.

“It is with great sadness that we learn that Rhona Hartner, actress, singer, producer, very involved in the Christian artistic community of Toulon, has left us.” The Diocese of Fréjus-Toulon commented on his Instagram account.

The filmmaker also responded to the announcement of his actor’s death in a press release sent to AFP (Through BFM): “It breaks my heart, he was a wonderful person, very generous, in the game and in life. When he won the prize in Locarno, he took everything there to put in his bag. The people of Locarno were upset, but when he went out, he gave everything to the poor, he was very generous.”

The first role and revelation

Of German descent, but born in Bucharest, Romania on March 9, 1973, Rona Hartner developed a passion for film and music very early. After the Romanian Revolution, which overthrew the Ceausescu dictatorship, he enrolled at university to take drama courses.

But it was his meeting with Tony Gatliff, who came to Romania to cast his film Gadjo Dilo, that defined his career and offered him his first film role. The third and final film in a trilogy devoted to the Roma community, beginning with 1983’s Les Princes. good morning Leads to meeting a character played by Romain Duris, who goes to Romania to find a famous singer who belongs to the Roma community.

Below is an excerpt from the film…

The first composition for Rona Hartner, a true discovery of the film, which brought her the Bronze Leopard for the best actress role in Locarno in 1997, as well as a nomination for the César for the most promising actress. The following year, he reunited with director Romain Dury for I Was Born of a Pig.

In 2001, he starred in Jean-Francois Stevenin’s Mischka, in 2003 in James Ivory’s Le Divorce, as well as in Michael Haneke’s Le Temps du loup with Isabelle Huppert.

After a few short films and a few appearances in small films in the 2000s, he will appear in 2011’s Chicken Plum. An amazing work signed in tandem by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Parono, which oscillates between burlesque and emotion, fantasy and gravity, favoring a mix of genres that will be nominated for the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.

Between comedies (Billions of You My Poussin, The Correspondent) and soap operas (Les Grands), Rona Hartner quietly pursued her career on the small and big screens alongside her singing career; Until 2023 with Alexandre Arcadi’s Le Petit Blond de la Casbah, which hit theaters on November 15.