Roma Behind the Camera

The Roma have always been a gravely disadvantaged group in Hungarian society, stigmatized and treated with derision by the media, prejudiced against by the majority society. To break this vicious circle and give a chance for self-representation, Black Box Foundation launched the Roma Media School. Its mission was to teach about 10 Roma youth a year to show in documentary films how they see the world and themselves and their communities in it. What we learn from their short films is depressing: the normality for media students’ communities is poverty, homelessness, racial discrimination and abuse. Luckily, there are a few films showing some hope of getting better education and political representation.