The film spotlights Tarik Azzougarh (“Cilvaringz”), charting his 20-year journey from a passionate teenager pulled onto a festival stage by Ol’ Dirty Bastard to becoming RZA’s official protégé.
Academy Award-winning producer Joanna Natasegara makes her feature directorial debut, tracing the decades-long journey of Dutch-Moroccan rapper and producer Cilvaringz, who transformed himself from the group’s most devoted fan into the unlikeliest of disciples to his childhood heroes, including The RZA, whose mentorship shapes the odyssey that follows.
That journey culminates in “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin,” a 31-track album packaged in an ornate, handcrafted silver box and auctioned to the highest bidder in 2015.
Only one copy will ever legally exist. Its scarcity is a form of protest, and an argument that music still holds intrinsic worth as art in a digital age. The result is one of the most controversial artifacts of our time that sparked ongoing conversations about technology, creation and ownership. It’s also a story about how far one outsider went to belong.
Netflix hosted the New York Special Screening. In attendance was executive producer The RZA, producers Abigail Anketell-Jones,Lauren Dark and Vanessa Kirby, and film participants Shifus and Shabazz of the Wu-Tang Clan. Following the screening, Joanna Natasegara and The RZA took part in a Q&A moderated by director Barry Jenkins.
“The Disciple: A Wu-Tang Fable” premieres October 16 on Netflix.
