This chapter examines the Romani families’ role in cinema’s early development in France (late 19th - early 20th century). When touring with their travelling cinemas, they brought the world within one’s grasp and spread a central experience of modernity and belonging throughout Europe (1). Romani people evolved from behind the scenes to the stage as subjects of cinema. Hence, they indirectly took part to the birth of the bohemian cinema (2). It interprets the experiences of filming themselves and showing short scenes as a quest of self-consciousness and an opportunity to challenge the stereotype of otherness (3). The paper concludes with the Roma’s progressive dispossession of their means of leaving since 1912 due to restrictive law on freedom to travel and political decision to withdraw cinema from these “wrong hands” on the pretext that cinema would be used to educate people.