This madcap, yet deeply humanistic documentary film celebrates the idiosyncratic characters that make up Shutka, a small Macedonian town which is home to the largest Roma (Gypsy) community in the world. Its fiercely combative inhabitants compete to have the biggest cassette collection, most suits, strongest gander, fastest dove and the sweetest canary. Still steeped in their superstitious culture, their love of competition, music and laughter is beautifully captured in the cheerful interviews of our irreverent guide, Doctor Koljo. After its premier in its home country, The Shutka Book of Records has quickly gained a cult following and the press honored it by calling it one of the best films ever made about the Roma. Aleksandar Manic’s warm and funny documentary is too extraordinary to be fiction, although some of the local characters “act” out their stories with a chutzpah and bravado more familiar to melodrama. The Shutka Book of Records won both the FIPRESCI Critic’s Award and the Audience Award at the 2005 Serbia and Montenegro Film Festival.

Aleksandar Mani, a producer and director, is one of the trio that runs the production house Cabiria Films from Prague. He was born in Yugoslavia and raised in Germany. He finished Heinrich-Böll gymnasium and studied psychology at the University of Cologne for two years. He graduated from the Prague FAMU in 1994.

Producer: Aleksandar Manic Screenwriter: Aleksandar Manic Cinematographer: Dominik Miskovksy Editor: Ivana Davidová