Vera Lacková

Slovakia

Vera Lacková

director, ceo, organization representative, producer

Do Magic

My family believes there´s a curse casted on us by our mean ancestor. I don't know if the curse is real, but I'm sure there´s a trauma, transmitted in our family for generations - during the Second World War, my great-grandfather was a partisan the whole his family, including small children was shot by Gestapo, there was a lot of violence around my family, but also inside the family. Sometimes I wonder if being Roma is a curse or a blessing. I´m wondering if some magic can help to heal it. That´s why I want to find a real Roma witch who can help to break this curse, because I want to save my three-years old daughter who is supposed to be the fifth and the last victim of it.
Magical rituals and fortune – telling have fascinated me since I was a little girl, thanks to my aunt Marcela, who is a fortune teller. I realise, Marcela sinks into deep depression and I wonder if she is affected by curse too, that´s why we embark on the way together, encouraged by two friends, Anastasia and Michaela, who seek for help themselves, we try to immerse in a fairy tale world, the traditional way of passing on knowledge among Roma people. In a playful, self-ironic way, we hope to find a recipe to help us.
In encounters with the old, traditional Romani witch Elena, the eclectic Vanda with an university degree, and the healer Marta, a former workaholic in retirement, they discover step by step new perspectives on our various problems: Anastasia, Russian in Czech exile, struggles with fear, guilt and loneliness due to the war in Ukraine; Michaela, Slovakian dance teacher, seeks to make contact with her boyfriend who committed suicide four years ago; and I and Marcela want to escape the trauma of repeated experiences of violence in their family history.
If I will be able to break the curse is still open. However, the premise is probably that people must first discover the magic within themselves so that they can be helped.