Shooting for the Top

FRANK151: Did you find that the bootlegging of Shottas cannibalized a lot of your sales?
Cess Silvera: I think it was a double edged sword, because it did hurt some places and helped some places. You know, because it was the first movie to ever been bootlegged for six years straight. Nonstop. With a demand. So, you know what I mean, that kind of marketing, I don’t think Sony would put that kind of marketing money behind it. The bootleggers were like my personal PR firm.

F151: So do you think the executives at Sony or whatever, are they recognizing game as far as the amount of buzz the film got on the streets? Do they understand that audiences are craving this type of content?
CS: I still don’t think they get it. Somebody needs to knock somebody on the head, because they don’t get it. The movie, like I said, if you go to Target, Best Buy, it’s in the best selling section in all of these places. The movie sold 135,000 copies the first week it came out. And they still didn’t do nothing to market. This is all happening because of word of mouth. I still don’t have a billboard no where. I don’t have an ad in a magazine. None of that is going on. I get no support from Sony as far as marketing the movie. Everything is word of mouth that the movie created on its own.

F151: When the whole bootlegging thing was going on with Shottas, did you ever want to bring it to the people that were screwing you over in the spirit of the characters in Shottas?
CS: Aw man. We did. We broke a few knee caps and knocked out a few jawbones in the beginning. We did that the first two weeks. We were all over NY man, running up in record shops and trashing record stores that were selling it and just, we were wilding. Yeah, we were in Shottas mode. But then we realized that the thing has become so big that we couldn’t even control it because while we’re in Queens trashing a record store and breaking somebody kneecaps, it’s the biggest selling thing in Brooklyn. By the time we get to Brooklyn, we hear that 10 other stores have it in the Bronx, and Long Island, and so on and so on until it just start going all over, to different states. There was this one guy who told me a story that he bought 500 copies of Shottas and put it in his van and he was taking them to DC, because he had people waiting on them in DC, and by the time he get to Delaware, he sold out. He have to turn around and go back to re-up. So I realized that it was bigger than what I thought it was. I had no idea that this bootleg thing would become such a phenomenon.

F151: So have you thought about maybe trying to go in and get paid
at that end too?
CS: I couldn’t do that. The reason why I couldn’t do that is I see my movies as my kids, as my babies. And for me to go out there and bootleg my own shit I feel like is me going out there taking advantage and exploiting my children in a wrong manner, you know what I mean? As tempting as it sounds. You know, I got guys when the bootleg was really crazy that came to me and offered me $100,000 for a master tape, and I had to be like, no, I’m not in that business. It’s like selling out my child. My intention for my movie is not for it to become just a classic in the bootleg section, it’s for it to be classic on the world stage.

F151: Now that you have some success under your belt, is the road any less difficult as far as getting your creative vision out there?
CS: Not really, because at the end of the day, you still got to fight and scratch and try to let people understand the integrity of what it is you’re trying to do. What I’m trying to do, I’m trying to do for Jamaica, for my country. There has never been a Jamaican director that has any international acclaim. I’m the first one. I’m trying to carry the torch that the legend Bob Marley left. I’m trying to do for the film industry what Bob Marley did for reggae music. Take it worldwide. I’m up for the challenge.

F151: Do you feel that the young people of Jamaica are inspired by film?
CS: Since Shottas I’ve seen a shift. Prior to Shottas everyone wanted to start a record label. And now, since Shottas, everybody want to do a movie. So I’ve definitely seen that shift in the culture. You have to understand, Jamaica only has a few natural resources. One of our biggest exports is reggae music… our ganja. And they both go hand in hand. So right now were trying to create another export because we don’t even have tourism. We don’t have bauxite. We don’t have none of that stuff no more. So now I’m trying to help create another industry: the film industry. And I think a lot of young kids are inspired because since Shotttas, I’ve run into so many young kids, Jamaican dudes, dudes in the streets who come up to me and be like, “Yo Cess, I’m putting together some money to do my movie man. And when I’m ready, I’m going to call on you and you got to give me some tips.”

F151: Do you see any ways the cycle of violence in Jamaica that you depicted in Shottas can be broken?
CS: That was one of the main reasons why I did Shottas. A lot of people probably think I did Shottas to glorify violence and I was not doing that. I was making Shottas to create dialogue. My whole purpose for creating Shottas was for the politicians and people in charge and even the common man to see that, listen, if we don’t create some kind of atmosphere for the youths to give them change, to give them alternatives, to give them options, if we don’t do that, then these are the people we’re going to end up with.

F151: So do you think you’re message is getting through?
CS: I think it is. I have a lot of cats who watch Shottas and be like, “man, I was doing that dumb shit.” I got cats right now who watch Shottas and who are still doing that dumb thing and their like, “Yo, Cess. My whole intention now is to put together enough money to go make a movie.” So I think it’s getting through.

F151: How do you feel your development as a youth in Jamaica shaped your sense of what you want to see on the screen as a filmmaker?
CS: My obsession with making movies came years ago when I watched this movie called Marked for Death with Steven Segal, where you’ve got this one white boy who come to Jamaica and kick everybody ass. I’ve been mad ever since that because I know it doesn’t go down like that. So I wanted to correct that. I wanted to make something that shows them that’s not the way it go down. So that was one of my big inspirations. But more than anything else, I’ve been a big fan of gangster flicks, ever since I was a kid. I used to watch the Hong Kong gangster movies. A Better Tomorrow, The Killer, all the John Woo stuff. Because you know in Jamaica we were raised up on Hong Kong flicks. Later on it moves on to stuff like Scarface and all of the Martin Scorcese stuff.  I’m a big fan of Martin Scorcese, whatever he does. Spaghetti Western. Sergio Leone. A Fistful of Dollars. All of the Clint Eastwood joints. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. So I always liked those movies, but I realized that they always have a certain culture, a certain ethnicity of people. So my whole thing was, OK, we’ve seen the Italian gangster flicks. We’ve seen the Jewish gangster flicks, like the Bugsy’s and all of that. But we’ve never really seen how real Jamaican gangsters get down. 

F151: To what do you attribute this overwhelming creativity out of Jamaica?
CS: I think more than anything else, the greatest art comes out of the greatest pain. I think because the situation in Jamaica is so destitute, it’s so dire that sometimes your only escape is the arts. Whether it’s music, whether it’s watching a movie, whether it’s going to a dance, you know what I’m saying. Whatever you do, you have to find some kind of escape. Because it’s either that, or the next extreme, which is not good for society on the whole. So I think people lost themselves in that and we’ve seen over the years how reggae has become such a dominant force as a culture. Because reggae is not just music. For me, my movie is reggae. I’m looking at reggae now like a movement. Like it’s a culture. Like hip hop is a culture. It’s a lifestyle. Reggae is another lifestyle. Reggae is no longer just music. Reggae is fashion. Reggae is film. Reggae is a swagger. It’s how you walk. It’s how you talk. It’s the colors you rock.

F151: What other uniquely Jamaican stories are you interested in telling?
CS: So many. Our culture is so rich. There are so many different stories to tell. I want to tell the Marcus Garvey story. I want to be the one to direct that. Marcus Garvey is the Godfather of the civil rights movement right here in America. A lot of people don’t know that. Spike Lee did Malcolm X. Give thanks. But before Malcolm X there was Marcus Garvey. Without Marcus Garvey there would be no Malcolm X because Malcolm X’s father was a follower of Marcus Garvey. So I want to tell that story.

I want to tell the Bob Marley story. Me and Ky-Mani, Ziggy, and the boys, we’re all talking about different ideas how we could get that done without all of the politics that’s involved with the Bob Marley story. I have a script called Mother’s Milk that I’m getting ready to do also. It’s about this woman who came to America from Jamaica to pursue the American dream but in the process of it she lost what was most important to her which was her son that she left in Jamaica to be raised by her mother. I have stories about the tourists who go to Jamaica and fall in love with a Jamaican girl. The Jamaican version of Last Tango in Paris. I’ve got all kind of stories.