How the Director of Wu-Tang Clan Doc ‘The Disciple’ Unraveled the ‘Wild’ and Untold Story of Cilvaringz and the ‘Once Upon a Time in Shaolin’ Saga
A fun fact perhaps not known by many industry folk is that Netflix’s first Oscar win didn’t come from one of its big, noisy and high-profile projects backed by a vast marketing campaign. Instead, the streamer’s very first Oscar statuette came from “The White Helmets,” about the inspiring work of volunteer rescue workers in Syria during the Civil War.
The 2016 short was produced by Joanna Natasegara, one of a number of powerful projects from the filmmaker exploring global conflict and socio-politics. A decade on, however, and the Brit has a very different tale to tell on screen, this time in her first doc feature as director.
Premiering at Sundance, “The Disciple” unravels the story of Dutch-Moroccan rapper and producer Tarik Azzougarh, better known by his stage-name Cilvaringz. An obsessive Wu-Tang Clan fanboy in his teens in the 90s, Cilvaringz managed to achieve the unthinkable and, through relentless hustle, hard work and determination, work his way into the group’s inner circle, touring the world with his then hero and mentor RZA.
But it was also Cilvaringz who produced the now mythical and hugely contentious Wu-Tang record “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin.” As part of a comment on the value of art — and wanting to give music the same status as priceless paintings in museums — he devised the concept to make just one copy and put it up for auction. Unfortunately, the buyer — who paid $2 million, making it the most expensive musical work ever sold — was notorious (and later convicted) entrepreneur Martin Shkreli, adding further clouds of controversy over the project.
Boasting an energetic style itself inspired by the Wu-Tang Clan and RZA in its use of diverse creative references (particular Hong Kong martial arts movies), “The Disciple” dives headfirst into Cilvaringz incredible trajectory within the group and the making — and subsequent fallout — of “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin.”
Despite the conflict and controversy surrounding the album, Natasegara — herself a Wu-Tang Clan fan since her teenage years in Manchester — says it was important to her that she not make a “beef movie.” Instead, the film seeks to underline the spirituality and strong ethics baked into the Clan and their art. “Each and every one of them believes in positivity,” she says. “And they believe in hard work and being nice to each other.”
Speaking to Variety ahead of its Sundance debut on Feb. 22, Natasegara — who was recently announced as the director of an HBO doc about Gisèle Pelicot — discusses the inspirational message of Cilvaringz’s achievements and bringing RZA on board as an exec producer. As she notes, he “really is that impressive and mystical in person.”
You’re obviously an Oscar-winner for ‘The White Helmets’ and have a number of other projects like that under your belt. But this is something very different. How did it come your way?
You’re right, I don’t think people are expecting this from me. But I happened to meet Cilva through a friend. I was on holiday with the family in Morocco and met him and he told me his story, which just this kind of wild, twisting and turning, magical story, full of its own serendipity, hard work and determination from him, but also with these kind of magical elements. And I realized that the full story hadn’t really been told. We continued talking and, quite quickly I understood that, he’s basically the same as me, so many of the themes, as I learned more and more. more resonated with me, with our age, with growing up in the 90s. And there’s so much that’s hopeful and optimistic about that and it just really, it really spoke to me. So it felt like the right project for to take the leap and director.
Why do you think this incredible story hadn’t been told before?
Maybe that is a function of the work that I’ve done before — I’m particularly proud of being able to gain trust from contributors. I think it’s really important that you approach telling people’s stories with total transparency and ethics, and that you lay out what you’re interested in and why you’re going to do it. With Tarik, we did a lot of talking before we started making the film. And I wrote to RZA very early doors. I wanted him and the Clan to know that we were doing this and that we weren’t interested in making a beef movie. There is this mysticism to the Clan that people that love them know and delving into what that is and the positive aspects of it are really important. Of course, there was conflict and controversy about this album, but I think approaching all of that with the most amount of respect for everybody was important to the story.
As you say, you happened to meet Tarik on holiday. But how did you manage to win over the RZA and the rest of the Clan?
It takes a long time. I have to be clear, not all of the Clan have seen the film, but RZA is an EP. As Tarik says in the film, they’re just people and people with beautiful manners. So each one of them we approached. Some of them replied and declined. Not all of them replied. But I hope all of them watch the film.
You proudly announce that RZA exec produced it at the end, but I wasn’t sure of his involvement as he’s not in all that much beyond archive footage. Was that an easy thing to figure out?
The approach is really from a fan, Tarik’s story and how he thrived under the mentorship of RZA. But also, RZA’s own accounts of the album he has given contemporaneously over the decades. So each piece that you hear, it’s really him and his thoughts at that time. And those thoughts evolve, so we could never really gain that same level of feeling if you interviewed him post facto, it’s not same. And I think he really liked that idea.
You must have met RZA several times. Even those who aren’t Wu-Tang fans appreciate he has this incredible aura around him and his work. What’s he like in person?
Yeah, he really is that impressive and mystical in person. The more I get to know him, because I was a Clan fan — not a fanboy like Tarik — but the more you delve into that world and their ethics and the way they treat people and the way they deal with things, the more you understand that that’s actually who they are. I think another aspect of this is that so much resonates in terms of morality and religion and spirituality that’s baked into their art.
As an outsider, much of the hip hop world feels very blingy and about excess and showing off, but with this film you really get the impression that the Wu-Tang have a different way of thinking spiritually. They seem very humble.
They are. They’re just absolutely lovely to be around. And with each one of them, we just had such a great connection, where they’re so open. And it really spoke to how we edited the doc. We really wanted everyone’s opinions, even when they were converging, to be represented fairly of what they thought about all of this. And the strongest impetus, I think, is that each and every one of them believes in positivity. And they believe in hard work and being nice to each other, and kind of aspirational dreams.
We had one young viewer that watched the film, and she burst into tears because she said, ‘Actually, this is the thing we don’t really have in our generation, this is something we should fight for.’ Hard work, but also dream big. And I do think the more I reflect on it, that’s something we perhaps did have in the 90s and was something that was baked into us.
The first section of the film deals with Tarik and obsessive fandom. He was a fanboy, but a talented one and through sheer relentless perseverance managed to connect with the Clan, start touring and then making music with them. I’m not sure I’ve seen that trajectory from fanboy to member like that before. It’s quite inspirational.
I agree. He gives a strong message of ‘What’s the worst that can happen, just go for it’.
The story of ‘Once Upon a Time in Shaolin’ — the first privatised album in the world — is absolutely wild. But it started with such a great moral thesis behind it. Was it just pure bad luck that Martin Shkreli came on board?
I guess so. I don’t know how they could have ever known. Tarik expresses regrets about certain things, but I think on balance, what I’d like the audience to ask themselves at the end of the film is, ‘You’ve heard all the kind of differing opinions, do you think on balance was a good thing that happened or not’. And I hope we’re not prescriptive about that.
Have you heard the album yourself?
I have heard some pieces of it, yes. The reviews are right, it’s like a combination of 36 Chambers and Wu-Tang Forever. It is that good.
