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

Who do we consider to be heroes and why? For their acts, their qualities, their courage or their clothing? Often when we talk about heroes, superheroes, doctors, firefighters or policemen come to our mind. This story shows the heroism of an ordinary person. My story goes back to when I was 18, and I lived in a condominium where a Russian lady, called Irina lived in the last flat. We were close to each other; her husband was even our distant relative. One day I noticed a lot of smoke coming from their flat. I ran to open the door and saw that their oven caught on fire and Irina was laying on the ground unconscious. I had to act immediately; there was no time to hesitate in that situation. I poured water on the oven, I dragged Irina out of the flat and called the firefighters, who came and put the fire out. It’s important to add, that in case of a disaster, if the flat had blown up, more residents could have got hurt. While on my way to the flat, I kept thinking that I had to act so that