Three Thousand Numbered Pieces
A white Hungarian director rehearses a play with five young Roma actors. His play tells their real-life stories of abuse, drug addiction, and crime. However, instead of representing the truth of their experiences, it only capitalizes on their pain and exploits them. The actors quit the play, only to find that their white director has already sold the show to Berlin's biggest theatre and the premiere is looming. Their rehearsals turn into a surreal exploration of racism and white guilt, blurring the lines between fiction and reality - and the play and the film itself. The film features an all-Roma creative team and is based on an actual play written by them about their real-life stories, presented in Deutsches Theater, Berlin. It asks the question of whether left-wing white intellectuals trying to help people of color actually end up helping to perpetuate systemic racism. Can the artistic representation of Romas, the biggest ethnic minority of Europe, ever be done without falling back on racist stereotypes?