Time of the Gypsies

Time of the Gypsies is a drama with comic and fantastical touches set in Yugoslavia before the country's break-up. Perhan is a teenager of mixed Romani and Slovene parentage who lives with his grandmother, a woman said to heal people without medicine, along with his uncle and his younger sister, who is ill. Perhan has a gift of his own: he can move objects with his mind. He loves Azra, but her mother will not consider him because he is poor and his father was not Romani. When a wealthy Romani man named Ahmed arrives and offers to get the sister treated in Ljubljana, Perhan joins him, hoping to earn enough money to build a house and marry. Away from home, Ahmed draws him into criminal work involving exploited women and children, and Perhan's path leads from trust toward corruption and loss.

Emir Kusturica directed the film, his third feature, following When Father Was Away on Business, and wrote the screenplay with Gordan Mihić. Davor Dujmović plays Perhan, with Borivoje Todorović as Ahmed, Ljubica Adžović as the grandmother Hatidža, Husnija Hasimovic as the uncle Merdzan, Sinolichka Trpkova as Azra and Zabit Memedov as Zabit. Made in the United Kingdom, Italy and Yugoslavia, the film runs 142 minutes.

Audience response remains strong decades after its release: on IMDb it holds 8.1 out of 10 from roughly 34,000 votes, and on TMDB it has 7.6 out of 10 from about 454 votes. A small set of critics' reviews gives it 7.2 out of 10, close to the audience scores.