Despite its whimsical poetic style, it was the first Central European feature film that put the Romani (Gypsy) community at the center stage in a realistically reflected manner.
It was also a singular artistic achievement in Slovak and Czechoslovak cinema during the period after the Soviet invasion of 1968 by Dušan Hanák, director of several acclaimed films who maintained the integrity of his vision and style throughout the vagaries of Central European filmmaking in the second half of the 20th century.
Hanák followed it with the still admired feature-length documentary Pictures of the Old World (Obrazy starého sveta, 1972), partly a meditation on what lies hidden beneath the concept of "an authentic life", a theme already addressed in 322.
[6] Although Hanák was treated with suspicion by the more repressive communist authorities that took over after the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, he found an early refuge in a topic sufficiently removed from big politics to survive on the margins of official production and yet, executed with a finesse that gave it a wide international appeal.
In the most extraordinary section, an old man talks with great fascination and lucidity about space travel, recalling how two astronauts walked on the Moon and collected rocks while a third circled in their spaceship.
The authorities delayed the shooting of Rosy Dreams for a year, because Hanák and Dušek refused to rewrite it with a socially optimistic ending that would have the two main characters getting married.
Among the few authentic voices that belonged to less experienced actors was the lead, Juraj Nvota, a student of theater directing at the University of Performing Arts[9] in Bratislava.
On the other hand, one of the film's most authentic-appearing characters, the granny Jakub feared dead, was actually played by the veteran actress Naďa Hejná from one of Slovakia's old, notable families who had a lifetime of amateur and professional experience on the stage[16] in Martin.
[3] Rosy Dreams was released on DVD in the PAL format, 4:3 aspect ratio, region-free ("Region 0") with English subtitles by SME/Slovenský filmový ústav[21] in 2007.