2023 Socially Relevant Film Festival Opening Night

On March 16th 2023 we was at the opening night of the Socially Relevant Film Festival at Lincoln Center. The opening night film was a documentary named Shabu. A film chronicling a boy who wants to be famous but is troublesome towards his family. Set in Rotterdam, Netherlands is where we see Shabu who opens the movie by crashing his grandmother's car and having to spend the summer working so he can pay her back. Throughout the summer director Samira Raphaela brought out her crew to get as much footage as they can because Shabu was too unpredictable between his girlfriend, getting money to pay back his grandmother and not spending not enough time with his best friend it was quite the rollercoaster. Throughout the film you get to see Shabu embraces his family's culture and rituals from his grandmother's homeland of Suriname. The film also looks into socioeconomic structures as the people

living near Shabu are close to poverty struggling to make ends meet daily. Even though Shabu is the focal point there are other characters who takes some shine from him like his on again off again girlfriend who breaks up him because he is too busy yet misses his affection for her. Even his friends takes over periodically with their opinions on women and how to make money. Shabu is a great documentary in which the kids with street smarts can enjoy and laugh through. A poignant coming of age story that not only shows a bad kid doing good but no matter how hard it goes there's always light at the end of the tunnel.