Documentary
movies made between 1960’s till today related to the issues of Roma inclusion, deep
poverty and cultural initiatives. Some of the movies could have seemed very old
and showing a very different reality related to today’s Hungary. But the
screening of the movies on the 13th December in the Roma Parliament,
Budapest was very special, as the movies were linked together by the acts of
the Independent Theater’s performance.
The movie-performance
showed many similarities between the social situation, political attitude and
cultural challenges of the state socialist times and today. The event started
as a round table discussion, where a politician, an artist, a human right
activist and an architect businessman participated. Although they played roles,
their discussion didn’t seem a theater performance – just a normal discussion
before a screening. After the first video, the actors started to interpret it,
and debate about actual questions as the movie wasn’t made 50 years ago but
yesterday. They also involved the audience in the discussion. Their debate
showed we still have similar problems related to the examined issues like 50
years ago. In the later scenes the actors came back in different situations,
where they face existential and moral questions in their present life, which
were quite similar to the ones seen in the screened movies. At the end of the
performance the audience was the witness of an unmoral agreement , which was
made by the human right activist and the politician, and also the fact that it
depends on us, if we do such compromises and if the situation will get any
better in our country in the next 50 years or remains the same for 100 years.
The
documentation of the performance become a part of the movie made by Sebestyén Kodolányi
the co-worker of the oldest Hungarian alternative movie studio (BBS), who was
fired afterwards – which is also very similar situation to the 60s.