For 14-year-old Adam, the world of his poor Romany village has only two joys: boxing and Julka, a friend his same age. But after the violent death of his father, the boy experiences life’s harsher side: his mother remarries and his stepfather demands obedience without seeking to deserve Adam’s respect. Gradually everything the boy was attached to starts to fall apart around him, and if his dead father hadn’t visited him he wouldn’t even know which path to take. The inexperience of youth, loneliness, and impulsiveness prevent him from using reason and cool consideration to face the obstacles in his way, and he even sometimes provokes those who stand by him. And thus he finds himself in a situation for which there is only one solution.

Çingene

Time passes slowly at the castle in the Slovak town of Stupava. It is, in effect, the local old people’s home, but it also serves as a refuge for others ‘who have lost everything’. The inhabitants (or ‘exhibits’ – since most castles house art galleries) range from an athletic old man in a speedy wheelchair to a philosopher with a taste for neologisms, a lawyer known as ‘the Classic’, a woman who has seen aliens, and the taciturn Liduška, who collects pigeon feathers. Director Pavol Korec has compiled an attractive mosaic of characters who, despite past tragedies, exhibit an enthusiasm for life whatever the constraints. Intelligent use of image and music lift this above the conventional documentary record. Unusual, affectionate, and subtle, the film provides a light-hearted testament and commitment to life as a value independent of neo-capitalist convention.