Czech Film Center

Synopsis

Franta works at a saw mill in a village in the Šumava Mountains, but at the end of the week he becomes an "Euroindian" living with nature and Native American rituals. When he stands up for Marie, a nurse at the local hospital, at a village celebration, a fast and carefree summer love affair seems to have ignited. The problem is Marie is a Roma, a fact that thrills neither Franta's family nor his friends. And Franta is white, a fact which Marie's hot-blooded, currently-on-parole brother is not thrilled about either, and her always busy boyfriend Martin, who is trying to fit the role of upstanding Roma businessman, is even less thrilled about.
The Montagues against the Capulets, the Jets against the Sharks, Gypsies against Yokels. Two different worlds collide in this hot East Side Story, and before the relationship can even get off the ground it is subject to the pressures of white xenophobia, Roma reserve, and both sides' stereotyped prejudices in a constrained small-town atmosphere. When Franta's best friend is left unconscious on the washroom floor in the factory after a brawl between Gypsies and whites, the young pair have to make a decision: To stick with tribal solidarity or go with one's feelings? In the process, they may shed a number of notions about themselves
and those close to them in return for finding out who they really are.