One can always expect another funny, fresh and untraditional story, when we talk of director Jackie Stoev. His new movie takes us to the Roma neighborhood of the town of Kyustendil, along with screenwriter Hristo Iliev – Charlie and sound director Johnny Penkov. The main character of the movie and a guide in the crowded hood is Boyan Istalyanov, a native person. Bobby has gone through a lot of occupations, a DJ among those and he admits the thrill isn’t gone now. Besides that he was the establisher of the first Roma cable TV. Furthermore – each morning he supplies the hood with bread, using his truck. Hence for the title of the movie – Bread and Circuses, the famous phrase of the Roman satirist Juvenal. What’s on that TV?

“We tackle mostly Roma issues, the things that concern the neighborhood,” Boyan says in an interview for RB. “There are things to be filmed at such a big spot, avoiding the clichés: Roma people steal, they do not pay their water bills – 90 percent of these stories are not true. We broadcast things that inform and enjoy people. For instance - Roma music, some weddings, Miss Roma Girl, Miss Spring contests etc. We also have educational programs. We urge kids to start going to school as early as the first grade. We communicate with 8^th graders, we allocate them to high schools – we don’t want them to be illiterate. Because education is the most important thing in a person’s life.”

About 12,000 people live in the Kyustendil Roma neighborhood, according to Bobby. Many of those go to church, the Adventist one. Here is what the director of the movie told a RB reporter:

“The important thing is that by going to church and having faith in Jesus they become different people, they have a more different attitude towards life. It is also important that the Bulgarian Orthodox Church wouldn’t make anything for that. Not a single Orthodox priest has ever entered the Roma neighborhood with the idea to do anything for these people.”

A beautiful blond Roma girl, who is a cook in Great Britain and has a wonderful sense of humor, is among the characters of the movie. “When someone plays music here, the neighbor starts to dance, while in GB they call the police” she says. A young man, adopted at the age of three by an American couple, returns here each year after their death, since he prefers to spend more time with his relatives.”

The Roma neighborhood has offered interesting, colorful, but also edifying meetings to the team, while making the film.

“As Johnny says, it is much more interesting to film a Roma neighborhood than a ministry for instance. Everything will be dull there. There were two churches and two choirs in the hood – one for the younger and another for the elderly people,” Jackie Stoev goes on to say. “On the other hand one can get the wrong impression on the neighborhood, as we picture a ghetto with ruined houses with no water. That is not so. The greatest part of the hood displays normal houses, many of them with yards and well furnished. Of course, each Roma neighborhood has its ghetto, where the poorest live…”

English version: Zhivko Stanchev