The protagonist, Beli Bora Perjar, is a charming but mean-spirited gypsy, while his former affair, the kafana singer Lenče, is submissive. Bora is in love with the younger Tisa, who is being offered in marriage by her step-father. The two get themselves in trouble and eventually have to flee. Tisa rejects her husband and she and Bora get married in the church. Tisa tries to get to Belgrade, while Bora stabs a man in a knife fight. They are both, therefore, exiled from their Romani camp, yet their adventures continue.
Director: Aleksandar Petrovic. AKA I Even Met Happy Gypsies
Stars: Bekim Fehmiu, Olivera Katarina, Bata Živojinović, Gordana Jovanović, Mija Aleksić, Severin Bijelić, Stojan Decermić, Milivoje Đorđević, Rahela Ferari, Etelka Filipovski , Milorad Jovanović.
1968 Academy Awards – Nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.
1968 Cannes Film Festival – Nominated for the Palme d’Or.
1968 Cannes Film Festival – Winner FIPRESCI Prize.
1968 Cannes Film Festival – Winner of the Grand Prize of the Jury.
1969 Golden Globes – Nominated for Best Foreign Language Film.
Very cool, Jon. Thank you very much!
Many thanks for this excellent film.
I was a kid at the time this movie was made. My grandmother took me and my brother to visit the gypsies living in mud huts just like that in a different part of Yugoslavia. We were playing with the kids, she was talking to the adults. The gypsies had a real bear. They would take him down the street of the town and have him dance for money. The guy who owned the bear had him on some kind of long stick and on a chain and that way he kept the bear controlled and away from himself. It is all like a dream to me now. I was little. This movie brought some of the memories back. Of weddings where gypsies would play music for three nights and three days without stopping. That world is gone now from the part of Yugoslavia where I experienced it. Because it is the EU now.