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Posts tagged: Shottas
Shottas Nuh Miss: Cess Silvera’s Cult Film Becomes A Series
October 26, 2011
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Words by Jesse Serwer
Back when Shottas, director Cess Silvera’s much-bootlegged Jamaican answer to Scarface, got picked up for theatrical release in 2006, a sequel was said to be following immediately on its heels. But when Shottas‘ status as a legendary black-market DVD didn’t translate to box-office success, talk of Shottas 2 seemed to dissipate. Turns out that when your entire audience has already copped your movie for $5 on Canal Street, even if it is a compromised version, they are not going to pay to see it again in a theater, even with all of the intended scenes restored.
Shottas Inna Duane Reade
April 26, 2010
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Words By Jesse Serwer
Five years back, Shottas was on its way to becoming the new millenium Scarface. Jamaican-American filmmaker Cess Silvera‘s low-budget, Ky-mani Marley-starring 2002 crime film was a favorite among both real and wannabe thugs, and a popular reference point in rap lyrics. The fact that you only could get the bootleg-only flick from the African DVD dude on the Ave, and not at Blockbuster, just added to its appeal. Not to mention that the movie was literally stolen, still unfinished, from Silvera. (Missing-scene placeholders like “Mike Tyson Gets The Shottas Guns” are actually more memorable than the proper scenes). But an attempt to release the proper, finished version of Shottas in 2006 failed (it played in a few New York theaters for one week), to a large degree killing its buzz.
