Entertainment

Vicente Rodriguez Speaks About His Vision for the Romani People

26.6.2017 23:40 On 8 June, during the launch of the European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture (ERIAC) in Berlin, the Huffington Post met with activist Vicente Rodríguez, the Romani organizer of the RomaPop alliance. Rodríguez discussed his mission to have Romani people portrayed in a positive light in popular culture.  full story

videoEgypt: Band Introduces Traditional Romani Music to the Egyptian Jazz Scene

16.6.2017 12:00 The Gypsy Jazz Project is an Egyptian band that has pioneered Romani-based music in the jazz scene there. The band is set to perform with Egyptian singer and actress Dalia Farid this Saturday 17 June at 9:30pm in the ROOM Art Space and Cafe in Garden City.  full story

videoIndonesia: Hijab-Wearing Female Metal Group Defies Stereotypes

15.6.2017 17:25 Voice of Baceprot, (VoB) is a female Indonesian metal group consisting of three young women who choose to wear hijabs, a type of Islamic headscarf. The band formed in 2014 in West Java, “and use their music to combat the stereotype of Muslim women as submissive or voiceless” according to reuters.com.  full story

Czech-French film features young Romani actor in lead role

1.6.2017 7:53 A new Czech-French film from director and screenwriter Petr Václav, "Skokan" ("The Jumper"), tells a story of the search for happiness. Its theatrical premiere will be 8 June.  full story

Czech Radio marks International Romani Language Day by premiering radio drama based on a Romani fairytale

8.11.2016 9:57 Czech Radio's "Vltava" station, which focuses on culture, broadcast a segment dedicated to the Romani language and literature on 5 November at 9 AM as part of its "Weekend Edition" program. At 10 AM the station broadcast the premiere of a dramatized reading of the Romani fairytale "About the clever (but deceitful thief) Bajcúr".  full story

Palestinian and Romani hiphop artists: "Rap is the CNN of ordinary people"

20.7.2015 2:46 Three weeks ago the "Days of Jerusalem" festival was held in the Czech cities of Prague and Plzeň, an event which for several years has presented the culture of this divided Middle Eastern City. Organizers included an appearance by Palestinian rapper Muhammad Mughrabi on this year's rich program.  full story

Czech director defends his depiction of Romani people in tv serial

Prague, 6.11.2013 0:17, (ROMEA) Lukáš Senft, a documentary filmmaker and student at the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague has written an open letter to the creators of the television serial "Sanitka 2", screenwriter Ivan Hubač and director Filip Renč. In his letter, which was also published by news server Romea.cz, Senft takes the serial's creators to task for lying about Romani people and depicting them as a bloodthirsty, dangerous, foreign and incomprehensible minority.  full story

Open letter to the writers of the Czech television serial "Sanitka 2"

Prague, 5.11.2013 17:04, (ROMEA) Mr Hubač, Mr Renč,  full story

Lukáš Houdek: When Romani people don't speak "gypsy" right

Prague, 26.9.2013 22:44, (ROMEA) Here it is! Romani people causing problems once more!  full story

Events scheduled for International Romani Day - 8 April 2013

Czech Republic, 1.4.2013 16:38, (ROMEA) On Monday, 8 April 2013 Romani people worldwide will celebrate International Romani Day. They will commemorate the historic first World Congress of the International Romani Union, which took place near London in 1971, primarily thanks to the initiative of Grattan Puxon and Donald Kenrick of Great Britain, Matéo Maximoff representing French Romani people (the Manouche), Jarko Jovanović of the former Yugoslavia, and other Romani individuals and Romani studies scholars.  full story

Benefit concert in Prague for resisters of gentrification in Ostrava

Prague, 14.3.2013 15:14, (ROMEA) A benefit concert to raise money to repair building no. 8 on Přednádraží street in Ostrava will be held this Sunday 17 March at 20:00 at the Café V Lese in Prague (http://cafevlese.cz/en). The program is jam-packed.  full story

Czech broadcasting body says tv station spread hatred against Romani people

Prague, 9.3.2013 21:12, (ROMEA) The Czech Council for Radio and Television Broadcasting (Rada pro rozhlasové a televizní vysílání - RRTV) has warned the TV Barrandov station (Barrandov Televizní Studio a.s.) that it has broken the law in its broadcasting. The violation reportedly occurred during the program "Joke for CZK 100" (Vtip za stovku) on 20 February 2013 at 20:00. The program included the following joke:  full story

videoRomani rappers: Avoid Czech practical primary schools

Praha, 12.2.2013 0:08, (ROMEA) "Send him to a grade school/so he can be somebody/he may be a Gypsy/but he's not dilino" ("Pošlete ho do základky, aby z něj něco bylo – i když je Cigán, tak není dilino") budding Romani hip-hop artists from Prague's Žižkov neighborhood rap in their new music video "Nebuď dilino!" (“Don't be stupid!"). The four young Romani men have broken through with their group United GipsyCrew online and a single in which they proudly declare their Romani origin.  full story

Giving the gadje what they want: NatGeo’s “American Gypsies”

New York, 23.7.2012 16:05, (ROMEA) The National Geographic channel is currently running a program called American Outliers which is being promoted as a documentary series about subcultures in the United States. The series features groups like the Amish, the Roma (or Gypsies), religious groups who believe in the imminence of the Apocalypse, etc. The first installment of the nine-episode American Gypsies series aired on Tuesday 17 July and was as disappointingly trashy as its advertising.  full story

Hindus ask Madonna to highlight Gypsy apartheid issue during her Europe tour

USA, 8.2.2012 11:15, (ROMEA) Hindus have asked entertainer Madonna, who was reportedly booed and jeered by thousands of fans in Romania in 2009 when she sympathized with Roma (Gypsy) people, to take up their cause during her upcoming Europe tour.  full story

"Cigán" ("Gypsy") wins four prizes during Karlovy Vary film festival

Karlovy Vary, 10.7.2011 16:21, (ROMEA) The Czech-Slovak film "Cigán" ("Gypsy") by director Martin Šulík has won the Special Jury Award at the International Film Festival in Karlovy Vary, which includes a prize of USD 20 000. Ján Mižigár, who played the main role, was also awarded special recognition. The film also won two awards from unofficial juries: The International Federation of Film Societies (FICC) called it the best film and awarded it the Don Quijote Prize, while the Europa Cinemas Label association also gave it a best film award.  full story

World premiere of Czech-Slovak film "Cigán" ("Gypsy") at Karlovy Vary film festival, then Toronto

Karlovy Vary, 6.7.2011 17:10, (ROMEA) Speaking at a press conference yesterday at the Karlovy Vary film festival, Slovak director Martin Šulík said his film "Cigán" ("Gypsy") is his most personal work. The film had its world premiere as part of the festival's main competition. Šulík says the image Slovak people have of Romani people is very distorted and incomplete and that his film wants to show what life is really like in the Romani settlements.  full story

Interview with Roma author Veijo Baltzar: "I grew up in misery, but with respect"

Brno, 2.6.2011 0:16, (ROMEA) Veijo Baltzar (*1942, Kuopio, Finland) is a Roma author living in Finland. He has written eight novels, more than 10 plays, and award-winning film and television screenplays. He is a pedagogue, a poet, a visual artist, a theater director and a theoretician of drama and new pedagogy. His first novel, Polttava tie (The Burning Road, 1968) was the first by a member of the Roma community through which Finnish society was able to view the world of the Roma community. In 1976 he founded the Roma theater company Drom and in 2002 he helped to found the International Roma Writers Association (IRWA), which brings together roughly 30 Roma authors from around Europe and of which he is the president. He most recent novel, called In Love and War (2008), describes the dramatic fate of a Roma clan in Nazi Germany.  full story

13th World Roma Festival KHAMORO opens in Prague 22 May

Prague, 7.5.2011 14:09, (ROMEA) If you would like to experience a week-long marathon of Roma culture, then come to the 13th annual World Roma Festival KHAMORO, which takes place during the week of 22. 5. – 28. 5. 2011 in Prague. The festival, held this year under the auspices of Czech PM Petr Nečas and the Mayor of Prague, Bohuslav Svoboda, has been held in the Czech capital since 1999. Over the years it has been supported by many leading public figures, such as Václav Havel. KHAMORO is organized by the Slovo 21 civic association and Studio Production Saga.  full story

Houdek's portraits of Roma authors open in Prague

Prague, 19.4.2011 13:36, (ROMEA) During the opening of "Lačho lav sar maro/Dobré slov je jako chleba" ("Good Words Are Like Bread"), an exhibition of photographs of Roma authors taken by Lukáš Houdek, we heard Petr, a sculptor and habitué of Prague's Jericho café, make the following confession after a few glasses of red wine: "I stole it, or rather, I borrowed it. I wanted to return it today, but I haven't finished it yet."  full story