General Information

Author/Creator

Paskievich, John, director.

Language

English.

Subtitles

English

Published

Canada, 1998.

Physical Description

VHS (92 min.)

Contents/Summary

Summary

A few hundred metres from the "white" part of Svinia, an eastern Slovak village, there is a "black ghetto". Half of the village's 12,000 population, the "blacks" or Roma, live there on a drained swamp in crumbling concrete blocks and huts made of sticks and mud. They drink dirty water and go to the bathroom in bushes. Naked children eat from bowls on the floor; flies cling to the faces of sleeping babies. Teenage girls nurse infants while smoking cigarettes. The film centres on Canadian anthropologist David Scheffel, who started a project in 1993 to help the Roma in Svinia become more self-sufficient by building their own houses. It argues that Slovakia's transition from communism to democracy has pushed Roma there to the margins of society. Mostly unemployed and living off welfare, they often steal from the homes and harvests of their white neighbours, causing a cycle of increasing tension in the community.

Bibliographic Information

Holdings

Item Type	Current Location	Call Number	Status	Shelving Location	Public Note
VHS	OSA Film Library	FL Record 0435b	Available		-