Mihaela Drăgan

For centuries, external narratives have distorted Roma identity through exoticism, criminalization, and systemic racism, depriving the community of its visual history. In contemporary Europe, these structural biases create institutional barriers, forced displacements, and restrictions on spiritual practices, effectively rendering the living complexities of the Roma invisible.

Co-founded by Mihaela Drăgan, Giuvlipen Theatre Company in Bucharest pushes back against this erasure through bold, experimental methodologies. This includes Roma Futurism, an artistic vision that de-centers whiteness and fuses cultural heritage with technology and witchcraft. Using joyful performance, music, and fashion, the collective challenges deep-seated stereotypes to rewrite the present and imagine the future. This community-driven approach extends into filmmaking with Drăgan’s collaborative documentary, I Only Pray to Sara Kali (2026), the mythical patron saint of the Romani people unrecognised by the Catholic church. By blending intimate, real-life footage with ritualistic performance, the initiative keeps the creative process entirely in the hands of Roma artists, ensuring the community shapes its own stories on its own terms.

Giuvlipen pursues transitional justice by demanding that the majority society deconstruct its embedded racism rather than forcing marginalized individuals to justify their existence. Reclaiming the Romani body as a site of collective memory rather than one of trauma, the initiative shifts the public focus away from victimhood, and celebrates Roma identity as a living force of intergenerational resistance and self-determination.