Somewhere Better

A lively and intimate portrait of the Kovac family of Czech Romas, who have applied for asylum in the United Kingdom and are waiting for a verdict on their residence permit. For 2 1/2 years, the director stayed with the family. She became part of the family almost inconspicuously and as a result the family no longer took much notice of the camera. At the start of the film, just after she has been given a lifelong residence permit, the mother of the family dies. The two brothers and eight sisters are very sad and the family comes together for the traditional Gypsy mourning ritual. Tensions in the family rise when the brothers decide not to bury their mother in the Czech Republic beside her husband -as she wanted -but in London. The Kovacs are determined to make something of their life in exile. After an unsuccessful business in secondhand cars, they open a club for Gypsies. Just as the club starts running smoothly, a death and a family quarrel take them back to square one. But the brothers don't give up easily and remain optimistic. Mira Erdevicki has made an unsentimental documentary that ignores the legal issue of who has a right to asylum and instead of that focuses on the human reality of being caught up in a system. The England we see in this film is very different from the one we normally get to know.