Three Thousand Numbered Pieces

An experimental, confronting and often hilarious comment on prejudices and exploitation in the art world. A group of Roma actors participate in a play by a white Hungarian director. Feeling exploited and stigmatized, they quit. But the play is already sold to a prestigious Berlin theatre, and the premiere is looming.

‘Do you feel sorry for me?’ Szintia asks the viewer. She is one of the Roma actors participating in a ‘deconstructionist’ play by a white director. ‘Of course you do,’ she says. ‘That makes you a good person.’ The play tells the real-life stories of the actors, who are asked to play scenes of drug abuse, robberies, rape and domestic violence. They are preparing to perform for theatre audiences in Berlin, where the theatre director tells ‘his Gypsy friends’ to ‘be proud of their scars’.

During the rehearsals, the lines between fiction and reality become blurred, leaving the viewers with an uneasy feeling about their role in this spectacle. Are white intellectuals trying to help ‘the underprivileged’ only feeding systemic racism? Featuring an all-Roma creative team, and based on an actual play written by them about their real-life stories.