This year, the BALKAN TRAFIK festival celebrates its 10th anniversary! The festival, which is devoted to cultures and minorities from South-east Europe and aims to bring these people together with local artists, has become an unmissable feature of the Brussels cultural calendar thanks to the quality of its programmes, its originality and its utterly incomparable atmosphere. It offers people the chance to think about what it means to share ideas and embrace multiculturalism, about migration and the historical memory of migrants and migrant societies. It is a time for fruitful cultural exchange in a festive, exuberant ambience which combines opportunities to meet the artists, film screenings and concerts.

All of this provides a perfect backdrop for the film Papusza (Poland, 2013, 126 min) directed by Joanna KOS-KRAUZE and Krzysztof KRAUZE. The film tells the true story of Papusza, whose Polish name was Bronisława Wajs (1910?-1987), and who was the first Roma woman to write and publish poetry after the Second World War. Her work and her different take on the traditional image of women within the Roma community led to her being shunned by her own community. Her work was published immediately after the war, and then in the 1970’s in literary revues, thanks to the efforts of Jerzy FICOWSKI who translated her poems into Polish. These were the texts upon which Jean-Yves POTEL based his French translations. 
The film will be shown on 16 April at BOZAR in the presence of the director, Jowita BUDNIK, the actor who plays Papusza, and Dragan RISTIĆ, a Roma activist with Serbian origins, who is a producer and actor. 

+++ More about Papusza (Bronisława Wajs) on http://culture.pl/en/artist/papusza 

PRACTICAL INFORMATION
>>> Center for Fine Arts – BOZAR (Rue Ravensteinstraat 23, 1000 Brussels), hall M – see map
>>> Satursday 16 April 2016 [first concert at 14:00]
17:30 – Introduction to the movie by Sara Moonen
17:35 > 19:40 – screening of Papusza
19:40 > 20:30 – discussion with Joanna KOS-KRAUZE, Jowita BUDNIK and Dragan RISTIĆ, moderated by Nicolas WIEERS
>>> one day pass : €25 > €19€ 
[online box office]

+++ Don’t miss the concert by the trio of virtuoso accodionists MOTION TRIO, the same day at 21:30: find out more HERE

Links

•  Balkan Trafik: http://www.balkantrafik.be