Dream big but stay grounded
An interview with Yusri Shaggy Sapari, Founder, Paradise Pictures.
I met Shaggy when we were both working for the Singapore International Film Festival (SGIFF) in 2019. We got to know each other better earlier this year when he and his wife gave us a one-night crash course on preparing for our first trip to Korea.
Shaggy’s direct and unadulterated way of saying things or expressing opinions may seem quite jotting at first, but after a while you realise there are nuggets of wisdom in them. I hope you get to discover some of these nuggets through the interview I had with him.
Q: Paradise Pictures was born out of your experience in preserving on video the work of artists at the Necessary Stage, which you were doing since 2011. Was there a crucial point or moment of realisation that you needed to start a film company? Tell us more about the origin story of your company!
A: There was a concerted effort from the National Arts Council (NAC) at the time to get Arts Organisations in Singapore to archive their work digitally via the nascent idea at the time, THE CLOUD. I applaud the foresight of that particular person from NAC for coming up with that line item in the grant. Other organisations such as Centre 42 were set up around that time to ensure that Singaporean works had a central repository for anyone to dig through and…
