Stéphane (Romain Duris), a young Parisian, goes to Romania to search for Nora Luca, a Roma singer harshly criticized by Roma activists for allegedly denigrating Roma's image that his father listened to incessantly in the last days of her life. His search takes him to a gypsy village where he befriends Izidor (Izidor Serban) and witnesses the pains and joys of the Romani experience.
Far from romanticizing Roma communities, Tony Gatlif continues in The Crazy Stranger with the portrait of minorities excluded from cinema's dominant representation. Therefore, the Roma community is shown in all its vitality, passion, and talent, but also in its tendency towards inebriation, crime and violence, a result of the segregation and xenophobia of the world around them.
- Duration: 113
- Production year: 1997
- Country: France, Romania
- Subtitles: Subtitles: PT, EN
Locarno International Film Festival 1997 | Silver Leopard