麻豆约拍

Aruban-Dutch TV and documentary director Shamira Raphaela has a string of award-winning films including Deal With It (2014), Lenno and the Angelfish (2017) and Daddy and the Warlord, which won a Golden Calf Award at NFF 2019.

Her latest documentary Shabu, is no exception and has already bagged a Golden Calf Award at the Netherlands Film Festival and IDFA award. Filmed within the Peperklip housing estate, the documentary follows the antics of an irrepressible, aspiring 14-year-old rapper and musician, who finds himself in the doghouse after crashing his grandmother's car and who now must spend the summer holidays raising the cash to pay for the damage.

She tells Nikki Bedi how she wanted to change the narrative for diaspora communities.

"It was very important for me to make a film about people from lower, social-economic background, from the diaspora community, which was not a film about victimisation of people, which was not about sadness and struggle," says Raphaela.

"We went out to different estates and in the Peperklip, when we were there, everybody was like you have to talk to Shabu, he is really the coolest guy from the flats," says Raphaela, adding, "He first tricked us by giving us the wrong phone number, and the wrong address and a different name, because he's street smart...but in the end we got to know each other and we built a very beautiful bond," she says.

(Photo: Shabu and Shamira Raphaela during production. Credit: Els Zwerink)

Show less