The Independent Theatre Hungary has been drawing attention to the values, stories and heroes of Roma theatre for 15 years. This year, the company organised the international theatre meeting for the 5th time, 5–9 May, 2022, in the RS9 Theatre. During the festival’s five years, the audience saw 29 performances. The festival’s main goal is to present authentic stories written by Roma authors which places Roma culture’s values in the spotlight. „We work to draw attention to the values of Roma dramas and storytelling, to Roma communities’ situations by putting value-driven people’s stories and extraordinary challenges in the spotlight through presenting contemporary European plays.” – Rodrigó Balogh, art director On the 5 th of May, the Independent Theatre Hungary, celebrating its 15 th anniversary, presented the theatrical collection called Roma Heroes Digital Collection of European Roma Theatre and Drama. The collection presents the values, the past and the present, the artists and the ...

  The role model of Zsolt, who grew up in Sepsiszentgyörgy, is the theater company of László Bocsárdi. The company’s epoch-making performances and intimate atmosphere immediately captivated the boy preparing for an acting career. “ I looked up to these actors like gods.”- he says nostalgically. He recounts that after one of the performances, he took courage and talked to them. That's when his dream to be an actor in the Tamási Áron Theater was born. He talks about his experiences in Marosvásárhely at Színművészeti Egyetem and how he got into the thick of alternative theater life in Budapest.  Finally, he talks about her community work, experiences and its aftermath at the Roma settlement in Őrkö.

  In Nebojsa Markovic’s life, storytelling played a huge role as a community-building force. According to him, storytelling already had been a performative act with expressive mimicry and by bringing the whole being of the narrator into the story. This is how Nebojsa's love of theater developed.  The little boy started writing sociodramas. He was disturbed by the inability of other people to form an identity-independent judgment in his direction. He talks about why he was disturbed at school by the compulsion of her Roma peers to comply and when the value of acceptance regardless of origin developed in his life. We can find out what matters most to him in theater and why he doesn’t have a role model.