“Much admired at the 1978 Cannes Film Festival, this remarkable first-feature by Pal Schiffer stems from its director's interest in the fate and conditions of Hungary's gypsy communities. After some short films on the subject, he decided to develop his ideas into a feature, following a young gypsy to Budapest and filming him as he tries to get a job and settle down. Far removed from tedious cinema-verite essays, Schiffer brings a vibrant, enquiring tone to his material and extracts some wonderful moments of irony, sadness, and humour from his hero's odyssey.” -John Gillett.

“Over the years we had found out that there is on every Gypsy Row a ‘spokesman' - a man who is authorized to deal with ‘strangers' on behalf of the community. In Németfalu, this spokesman was a short and brawny fellow - Gyuri Cséplö was his name. His mistrust was soon dispelled, and he talked vividly and fascinatingly about the Row, the people, himself. We were struck by his fine way of speaking, his accuracy of phrasing, and his gift for telling a good story. He had made a good many attempts to better his people's lot and failed dismally in all of them. It was almost casually, in a kind of routine manner, that I asked him the question. ‘Did you never think of going up to Budapest?' ‘I often did want to do that, but one finds it hard to get started, you know,' he replied. It all happened in a flash - then I knew that he was our man: we would do our film about him! But all I said to him then and there was that I thought he'd better wait for some time yet and make no move to come up to Budapest until I told him. With that, directing of the film had begun - but it was a year and a half before we actually did get down to the shooting itself. A good part of the intervening period we spent at Németfalu, and we had started a lively correspondence with Gyuri.
“However, Gyuri, for all the qualities of a ‘pro' he possessed, remained the Gyuri Cséplö of Németfalu Gypsy Row: you could never get him to act out a situation or utter a single line that he felt was foreign to him. But he would give a perfect histrionic performance in every situation he felt to be congenial: one that he could have found himself in real life. Our task was to find these situations for him, to create them, bring them about for Gyuri Cséplö.” -Pal Schiffer