The Roma Visual Lab which has run as a film program and university course since 2011 at the Department of Media and Communication, ELTE University, screens and discusses films representing Hungarian Roma and other vulnerable communities. The film program devotes special attention to democratic ways of filmmaking, such as participatory film. More recently, a larger research organization called Minor Media/Culture Research Centre has been established on the foundation of the Roma Visual Lab. The researchers of this centre plan to launch a basic research project, which will map the history and present practices of participatory film culture. As results of our basic research we expect detailed answers to our questions, such as when these initiatives first appeared in Hungary, in what types they took shape, what their aims were and what results they had over the past 30-40 years. It is well known from the international academic literature that in actual and virtual media spaces informed by relations of power and subjection, vulnerable minority communities have little if any access to national and country-wide media dominated by the majority. Participatory film cultures all over the world intend to involve the minority groups in order to empower the communities concerned to create their own image. This image, if it meets the openness of mass media, could authentically represent the minority for society and effectively counterbalance the stereotypical clichés. The study of the participatory film culture can result in a historical and synchronic database, and good practices of that database can become part of the media literacy and national visual culture.