Nadezhda — a documentary series

Following a decisive meeting between Stefka Stefanova Nikolova, a resident of a Roma neighbourhood in Bulgaria and author, and Cécile Canut, a French sociolinguist and filmmaker, a collective film was made between 2007 and 2022, in the form of a documentary series. Centred on the extended family of Stefka S. Nikolova's and their (over)life in a walled and segregated ghetto, the film traces the lives of several generations of musicians. Punctuated by the births, marriages and deaths of its inhabitants, it reveals itself in the alternating joys and sorrows resulting from the social and political tension outside, palpable at every moment. At its centre, the voice and writings of Stefka S. Nikolova give way to the hopes of a woman torn between the desire to flee and the desire to free her neighbourhood from the discrimination that imprisons its inhabitants.