Acclaimed Slovak director Martin Šulík made an uncompromising film about a young Roma boy born in a settlement in Eastern Slovakia.

The director said: “We wanted to make a film about our Roma because we realized that we don’t know anything about them. We know the Gypsy Kings, a one-hundred-member Roma orchestra from Budapest, but we have no idea of the conditions in which two hundred thousand Roma live in eastern Slovakia. Before we started writing the script, we travelled around Roma settlements and met interesting people who opened up to us and told us their stories. Our film was made up of their stories. We did not want to mythologize the Roma, look at them as folklore or romanticize them. We wanted to capture their life truthfully, because life in a Roma settlement is a reflection of our world. It’s just that everything is more emotional, more intense and more direct.”

• Tragický příběh romského chlapce. In: Szena. 27.05.2024. http://www.scena.cz/index.php?d=1&o=4&c=45804&r=11