living on a dump

Cluj, Romania, nine years after the revolution. A gypsy community next to the city dump. In the past many of them were workers or farmers. Now they are reduced to living on and of the dump. Here they work eat and play. They collect everything that they can use: mouldy bread to feed the pigs, scrap metal and glass to sell, plastic to burn for cooking, discarded clothing to wear, and sometimes even food for the family.

Some of the kids stay almost all the time on the dump. In the night they are searching in the rubbish with self-made torches. Their parents have no legal papers and therefore they are not entitled to medical care. But even on this wasteland the gypsies are not allowed to stay. In the past the police tried a few times to chase them away and soon the dump is said to be closed. If that happens no one knows where to go.