Czech Film Center

Synopsis

“White man’s eyes see differently than I, than we Romas do,” Marek Balog said when the shooting of Violin Knight began, and from that moment on this outstanding violinist wanted complete control over this documentary about himself. Day after day he patiently advocated his vision of a “Gypsy documentary” until he ultimately displaced the disoriented director completely beyond the events themselves. Balog decided to create a genuine, undistorted portrait of the Gypsy world, without the limitations of realism or the rules of authenticity. And he ultimately prevailed. Marek Balog fuses genres and styles spontaneously and without restraint, the film precipitously stumbles off the beaten paths of documentary film-making; taking sharp twists, it barely follows the tracks of elementary lucidity, only to suddenly slip away from the viewer into the backdrop of a captivating Gypsy imagination.