Dir.: Tony Gatlif; Script: Tony Gatlif; Phot.: Eric Guichard; Ed.: Monique Dartonne; Mus.: Romain Duris, Rona Hartner, Izidor Serban, Ovidiu Balan, Dan Astileanu, Valentin Teodosiu; Cast: Tony Gatlif, Princes Films, 2, rue Raymond Greban, 78100 Saint-Germain-en-Laye (France), tél.: 39 21 75 11, fax: 39 21 75 12; Prod. & Sales: Bengameh Panahi, Celluloid Dreams, 24, rue Lamartine, 75009 Paris (France), tél.: 49 70 03 70, fax: 49 70 03 71.

Why is Stéphane, a young Parisian boy, arriving at the northern train station of Bucharest in the dead of winter? What is the significance for him of this strange song, this woman's song ("Nora Luca") that he makes everyone listen to wherever he goes? The Romanian capital is only one stage of his trip. His obsessional quest leads him to Valachie, in the heart of an unknown country, of a flayed people, the Lautaris -- musicians, Gypsies. Old Isidor guide him into this chaotic world, at once picaresque and violent, funny and grating. Isidor is a "bulibasha" (head of a clan), wily, devilish, touching, bombastic. He protects and shelters his "French boy", first using him and then taking a liking to the lad. Stéphane slowly sinks into this realm of shouting and mud and madness where scorn and xenophobia are omnipresent. Stéphane takes the present as it comes, loves Manolé's daughter, the forbidden Sabina, and little by little builds his self-confidence in the face of Isidor, and though he is the Parisian "gadjo", finds his place among the Gypsies of Valachie. All without losing the thread of his obsession: the Gypsy song, the song of a woman whom he must find.