BLACK-AND-WHITE IN COLOUR

The documentary film about the well-known Romany singer Vera Bila and her KALE group is a fascinating and sensitive portrait of a striking artist and strong personality who refuses to change, despite the intolerance that exists in Czech society towards Romani ethnicity. Over a lengthy period, the filmmaker observed Vera Bila during ordinary work situations and during exceptionally tempestuous moments of her life. The singer, who considers herself to be a typical Romany, lives with her husband and her beloved adopted son who, at the time, is in prison for robbery. Mrs Bila is looking for a wife for him from a poor family in Slovakia, where she comes from, but he is not interested. She certainly doesn't fulfill one's conception of a star: she smokes thirty cigarettes a day, plays slot machines, is an avid eater despite her obesity, often flounders in dept, and has taken her hi-fi to the pawn shop eighteen times. She buys her clothes in second-hand shops and insists that talk about her wealth is just gossip. The film director manages to bridge the distance the artist usually puts between herself and the media, to create an image that simply portrays Vera Bila as she is.