Czech Republic: Robin Stria has passed away after a brief illness
Robin Stria, a director and photographer who was a creator of Tuke TV and a curator of the video collection at the Museum of Romani Culture has passed away after a brief, difficult illness. That information has been confirmed by his widow.
Mr. Stria was a talented artist who did his best to change the image of the Romani community and contribute to its emancipation. He was also involved in local politics.
He was born in 1991 and spent his childhood in Letovice, where he was adopted by a non-Romani Czech family, as well as in a Christian community that became his lifelong second home. He was a graduate of the college preparatory grammar school in Letovice, then from the Evangelical Academy, and most recently from the Higher Professional School of Social Law, but audiovisual production and the camera became both his fate and his passion.
Mr. Stria first came into contact with this art through Romani film director Vera Lacková’s Media Voice project, and through her workshops and his own diligence and effort he gradually learned how to work with both audiovisual technology and editing programs, after which he began to create his own short documentary films and videos. The crucial subject of both his personal and professional life was the emancipation of ethnic Roma and their participation in the political life of the Czech Republic.
He naturally began to combine both of those subjects in his activist practice and his other work. In 2018 he directed and produced the first-ever Romani sitcom in the Czech Republic, “Miri fajta”, based on his 2017 theatrical production, producing two pilot episodes for a potential series.
The actors and some of the crew on that production were Romani youth. The series was screened as part of the Serial Killer festival in 2019 and a documentary film of the same name was produced about the series by Martin Chlup and Peter Kačírek (Miri fajta, 2020).
In the year 2019, together with Marie Gailová and Alica Sigmund Heráková, Mr. Stria co-founded a Romani television channel, Tuke.TV, where he worked as a director until 2022. He also worked as the video documenter at the Museum of Romani Culture and was a Green Party member, running on their ticket in 2018 in the local elections in seventh place for the Brno-střed Municipal Department.
Mr. Stria also recently campaigned for Czech President Petr Pavel and was an active figure in the field of the emancipation of ethnic Roma, concentrating chiefly on Romani boys and girls, to whom he gave room to learn how to work with audiovisual technology in practice. He passed away after a brief illness on 17 March 2023 at the age of 32, and his death has greatly affected his colleagues, family and loved ones.
Mr. Stria has left behind a documentary film about endometriosis that was in development, a screenplay for a feature film on the subject of the Holocaust of the Roma and Sinti, and above all the strong legacy of his bravery, strength and will to overcome obstacles and keep pursuing his dreams. He was and always will be an inspiration to Romani youth, and not just to them.
