Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2000 20:36:16 +0200
A careful review of the electoral polls in Nis indicated that the entire Romany (Gypsy) population in Nis (cca.10 000 votes) voted for Vojislav Kostunica. Finding this fact intriguing, the reporters searched for an answer in the Romany colony. The Romany king informed them that the voters merely obeyed his order to vote for Vojislav Kostunica: "...because he is a good and honest man, who has filmed so many beautiful and positive movies about them."

Positively (or negatively, depending on the point of perception) identifying himself with the cultural and political status of contemporary and former Yugoslavia, Emir Kusturica incorporates a recognizable phantasm of exotic Romany and excesses of the Balkans in his films.

Put in another context and mediated as a representation of this phantasm, the still from the film 'Gipsy Caravan' re-establishes the relation between the public representation and the real status of the Romany. It creates a certain tension between the pragmatic power of the establishment and the potentially fatal presence of 'the other'. This is a paradigmatic social symptom, making the Romany merely an explicit category- all over Europe.