I Even Met Happy Gypsies Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.5
Overall		4.5

I Even Met Happy Gypsies Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman September 6, 2026

I Even Met Happy Gypsies is the first Blu-ray release from Croatian label Filmokaz, founded to help promote Yugolsavian cinema. A number of boutique labels have been exploring various underexplored nooks and crannies of international films, with Arrow Video and Radiance Films springing instantly to mind, but this is one of the first examples to my knowledge of the founding of a label for one specific country and/or region. I Even Met Happy Gypsies was an Academy Award nominee for Best Foreign Language Film (losing to its relatively nearby neighbor Czechoslovakia for Closely Watched Trains), and it is often cited as a paradigm of the Yugoslavian Black Wave Movement. If that movement isn't as readily recognized as, say, France's Nouvelle vague, it actually has tethers to the French New Wave, as well as certain elements of Neorealism, something that is especially noticeable in this film. Anyone who has based their knowledge of Gypsies and/or Roma peoples from often fanciful films* (some even Serbian) will find this film to be near revelatory as it explores the hardscrabble lives of a bunch of villagers.

*Broadway fans may recall there was a relatively long running but still financially unsuccessful musical about Gypsies called Bajour, which starred Herschel Bernardi and Chita Rivera.

In the English language booklet which Filmokaz will be sending as a PDF to all international buyers, writer and director Aleksandar Petrović offers the following comments:

Why do I love the Gypsies? How did I get to know them in the first place? For as long as I can remember, I felt compassion for the little raggamuffins who begged on the streets of Belgrade. They were dirty, dressed in rags… I felt compassion for the young Gypsy women who, crouching on the asphalt with a newborn in their arms, reached out for alms. That compassion was deeply rooted within me and grew stronger over time. Today, poverty in Serbia is greater than ever: 30% of Serbs live on the brink of starvation. Due to a shortage of medicine, patients in mental hospitals are tied down, and death from malnutrition is common. Yet, the Serbian Gypsies are the most wretched among the wretched. By the age of four or five, Gypsy children are already cast out onto the streets. They wash the windows of cars stopped at red lights. For this service, they receive a dinar or two. Despite this, they remain ready to laugh and joke…

In the depths of the large black eyes of these children of wind and poverty, I try to read the secret of their origin. No one knows where the Gypsies came from, but they are a nation in the truest sense of the word. What brought me closer to them was their inexhaustible sense of freedom and music. I wanted to make a film about the Roma people. . .that is how the film was born.

The result at least initially begins on a quasi-Neorealist footing as it introduces Bora (Bekim Fehmiu), a kind of rascally feather merchant (the original Croatian title of the film means The Feather Gatherers) who picks up young female Tisa (Gordana Jovanović) in a car during a rainstorm. A brief interchange reveals Bora has eyes for the woman, though things are complicated by the fact that she's the stepdaughter of Mirta (Bata Živojinović), Bora's rival in the feather trade. Making things even worse is that Mirta is planning an arranged marriage for Tisa, and certainly not to Bora.

Things become decidedly more melodramatic as various relationships develop and/or devolve, with Bora and Tisa eventually hightailing it to the mountains where they have a local monk marry them (even though both are already married). Unsurprisingly, tragedy ensues, though it's still remarkably visceral when it unfolds. I Even Met Happy Gypsies has undeniable irony in its very title, since the film depicts a cohort of often desperate characters seeking to escape the vagaries of their fate.

I Even Met Happy Gypsies Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

I Even Met Happy Gypsies is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Filmokaz with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.70:1. Both a prefatory text card and a printed comment in the insert booklet (more helpful since it's translated into English) state that this was "restored in 2019 by Jugoslovenska Kinoteka from the original negative". Much as with the characters and their lives themselves, this is a somewhat gritty looking presentation that offers an intermittently pretty thick grain field. There are some interesting fluctuations in clarity and grain even in specific sequences, as in the opening vignette where the material in the car is significantly clearer than a bunch of cutaways to what's going on outside, which I assume were probably shot by a second unit. On the whole, though, this is a commendably organic looking transfer that is especially impressive in its detailing of the worn and at times shabby clothes various characters wear. The palette, while echoing the hardscrabble lives of these people, is nicely suffused and has some significant pops of color along the way. Petrović and cinematographer Tomislav Pinter (does Harold have a Serbian cousin?) repeatedly employ extreme close-ups, to the point that large sections of faces and/or heads are left out of the frame, but that stylistic choice at least provides excellent fine detail levels on facial features.

I Even Met Happy Gypsies Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

I Even Met Happy Gypsies features a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono track in Serbian and Romani (see the screenshot of the English language menu for various subtitling options on the disc). The track is filled with both the ambient environmental sounds of village life, but especially with some very evocative ethnic music (the film's title is culled from an apparently well known folk song which is sung in the film). Dialogue is presented cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional subtitles in various languages are available, as seen in the aforementioned screenshot.

I Even Met Happy Gypsies Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Zabranjeni bez zabrane (HD; 58:54) is a 2006 Serbian documentary about the Black Wave Movement. The title means "censored with censorship". Subtitled in English.


• Putevi (HD; 18:27) is a 1958 short by Petrović about Serbian painter Sava Šumanović. Subtitled in English.


• Sabori (HD; 11:57) is a 1965 short by Petrović documenting believers participating in various religious festivals. Subtitled in English.

Filmokaz offers a really nicely appointed insert booklet, even if the one that comes with the disc will be unreadable for most (hence the PDF file being sent to international consumers). There are several essays, comments from Petrović, and text about all three films on the disc. The sleeve has an inner print.

I Even Met Happy Gypsies Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

In a very real way we seem to be in a new Golden Age of international cinema in terms of its availability on home media formats, and Filmokaz is certainly to be welcomed into the fray with this astounding release. Technical merits are solid and the supplements very appealing. Highly recommended.