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Roma Scorn Their On-Screen Portrayal

16 02 2006  Macedonian Roma don't recognise their life as it is portrayed in an award-winning film.

By Tamara Causidis and Maja Ivanovska in Skopje (Balkan Insight, 16 Feb 06)

"We Roma don't need a state because we have the entire planet," says Bajram Severxhan, in the new hit documentary, The Shutka Book of Records.

Two weeks after it opened, the debate about the film, which stars 15 Roma characters from a suburb of Skopje, is still creating waves, pitting audiences and critics against those whose lives it portrays.

Although it had to compete in Macedonia's cinemas with such blockbusters as Munich and Narnia, the joint Czech-Serbian production, directed by Alesksandar Manic and shot in the Skopje municipality of Shutka, has had no problem pulling in viewers.

Protests by Roma non-governmental organisations, NGOs, and local politicians, who accuse the film of ridiculing the Roma community, have only made audiences keener to see what the fuss is about.

Bajram Severxhan, who previously starred in Emir Kusturica's Black Cat, White Cat, takes on the role of the narrator, leading us through the stories of the 15 characters united by a shared passion to be champions in their fields.

For one, this means combating bad giants and vampires, for another, it is dressing to the hilt, and for yet another, the ultimate collection of Turkish songs is the goal.

The transsexual Fazli, aka Sabrina, the dervish Jashar and the singer Bajram are some of the champions in a very different, almost surreal world from the one conducting its business a few kilometres away in the centre of Skopje.

Shutka is portrayed as a world of great originality, but also as deeply poor and in many ways uncomfortable.

The film, which won awards from the International Federation of Film Critics, FIPRESCI, and from Amnesty International at last November's Ljubljana film festival, also won plaudits at film festivals in Rotterdam, Trondheim, La Rochelle, Johannesburg, Cape Town, Subotica, Novi Sad and Zagreb.

Darko Mitrevski, director of Partizans, the distribution company which owns the Macedonian rights, says it is tender, emotional and affirmative. "It is a movie about fifteen adorable, charming people who think they are champions within their professions, their hobbies and their lives."

But Roma leaders in Macedonia take issue with the way they have been presented as entertainment for a mainstream audience.

The opening night in Skopje was marked by a small protest of 30 representatives of Roma NGOs and politicians who accused the film of unduly emphasising the dark side of Roma life and of ridiculing them for commercial purposes.

Erduan Iseni, mayor of Shutka, or to give it its official name, Shuto Orizari, said the film distorted the image of Roma people in Macedonia and harmed the state.

"The movie will make you laugh, the movie might even shock you, but it will not give you any information on the Roma community in Shutka," he told Balkan Insight.

What riles Roma most is the attempt to present the Shutka Book of Records as a documentary, when they maintain it is fiction.

"A documentary cannot be a movie in which we have actors that perform previously conceived acts," Iseni said. "This is a movie where you have action, and you have comedy, but you do not have reality".

Roma members of the audience have also voiced mixed feelings about their on-screen portrayal as a community.

"I was born in Shutka and spent my whole life there but that doesn't mean my life is the same as the one of these so-called champions," said Remzie Bajram, aged 20.

Some Roma wince especially at the stereotype of their community as constantly cheerful and carefree, and as people who follow different rules and principles from those of "normal" people.

Mayor Iseni said it is time for society to accept that Roma do not match that worn-out image. "It should be understood that increasing numbers of Roma people are getting a formal education," he said. "These people are ordinary citizens."

However, the Macedonian public and the international critics prefer to cling to their comforting old stereotypes.

In the local media, the movie garnered rave reviews. "The entire diversity of Roma culture in the Balkans has been presented," the daily newspaper Dnevnik said, reporting on a review that had been published after the film premiered in Trieste.

The review described the film as "the only movie in which Roma people are neither thieves, nor victims, no mercenaries, but... champions!"

"I liked the movie because it speaks of the tradition and customs of Roma people and of the way they nurture them," enthused Dejan Mitev, aged 24, from Skopje.

But Shutka's mayor says he was not impressed by the wall-to-wall praise. "The movie does not represent Roma culture," he said.

Tamara Causidis is BIRN project coordinator in Skopje. Maja Ivanovska is a BIRN trainee. Balkan Insight is BIRN's internet publication.