Back when we still thought a good summer was coming, Jody McIntyre and Kevin E G Perry were re-united for the first time since the chaos of Strasbourg, to hit an advance screening of Shifty at the Brixton Ritzy, followed by a Q + A session with the two stars of the film, Riz "Post-9/11" Ahmed and Daniel Mays...

Thanks to the online campaign of a lifetime, I have been seriously excited about seeing Shifty. After attending the launch party the night before, where Riz MC and Plan B did their best to tear it up with a mic from medieval times, hype levels have officially shot through the roof.  And I wasn't disappointed. Despite a miniscule budget and time-frame of only 18 days, the movie doesn't look unprofessional or feel rushed in any way. The dialogue was completely natural (props to the writer for resisting the temptation to throw in a "blud" every other line) and to witness Shifty's customers so willingly self-destruct for the sake of a fix is difficult to watch, in a good way.

The film raises serious issues about how we interpret the drug problem in our country - Shifty is a young Muslim with four A-Levels, a smart young man with endless prospects, but has consciously chosen a life as a drug-dealer...it doesn't amount to the usual perception of the neighbourhood crack hustler. But who are the real victims of the substances pushed on the streets of the city and snorted from toilets in posh clubs.

Coca farmers in Bolivia earn a few dollars per day, yet they are the ones who have suffered for the last four decades at the hands of the US' supposed "War on Drugs".  ather than looking at why their own citizens continue to fuel production of cocaine as it's biggest consumer in the world, successive US regimes have chosen instead to punish the poor farmers in the Bolivian countryside who struggle to get enough food for their family to survive. In addition, the coca plant is a traditional crop in Bolivia, used to make coca tea and for it's medicinal properties, but the US weren't too interested as they burnt down field upon field of the stuff.

As with so many of America's "Wars" abroad, their policies are very hypocritical - since their invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, heroin exportation has reached record levels, according to a Los Angeles Times report. First we find out that Bin Laden was a former CIA employee, and now this? You've got be kidding me...

But despite the main character being a dealer, Ahmed put forward the view in the post-screening Q+A session that Shifty "isn't a film about drugs, but about this relationship between two guys", and I agree. Far from glorifying the drug business, the viewer is confronted harsh realities of being constantly on the run and nearly all the drug-takers in the film are shown to be seriously suffering in a state of turmoil.

Instead, Shifty is an intimate examination of human emotion, and the ups-and-downs of the relationship between Shifty and Chris (Ahmed and Mays) as they face more challenges than you'd ever imagine 24 hours could present.  Far from a Godfather-esque gangster flick...more of a Brokeback Mountain Part Two?

Words: Jody McIntyre - "I spent a night with Fiddy, it was Ctrl.Alt.Shifty!"
Photos: Katy Chan. To see more of Katy's photography please visit www.ktchn.com or email her directly at

Shifty is out on DVD on August 15th. Support!