Photos

One of the last things I expected from visiting Pristine was to end up at a circus.....but life is as curious in its twists and turns as ever and it was a circus I did end up at! An Italian circus in the city on its Europe wide tour. It ended up as a treat for some members of Sami Mustafa's (a Roma film-maker I met through Balkan Sunflowers) family and the remarkably committed social worker Rand Engels who set up BS ten years ago. Their collective time and care to show as much of their work as they could to myself and colleague Amy Edwards was a remarkable gift to us travelling as we were on such a short time scale to the country. Treating them to this show was a small reward by comparison but as none of them had ever been to a circus the delight and wonder on their faces was little short of fantastic!

The performer depicted here was a highlight of the show. He came on with an empty box - blew fire into it and produced the girl! Then he did the whole bit with piercing a box with her in it - with around 20 large white rolled up umbrellas! She survived of course! Then he brought on a contraption - another box - she got in - he lit the prongs on the other side of the contraption and slide them burning through the holes in the box - after he retracted them and opened the box she had gone! My friends are in complete wonderment at this time!

He closed the box - waved a cloak in front of it and Hey Presto! she appeared!! The crowd are ecstatic......it was good enough....I have seen such tricks many times live and on TV...I know some of the tricks of the trade.....he was slick....it was very well pulled off.....but even i was surprised and on my feet when a second girl appeared! Hey Presto! Presto!