Netflix brought out the right crowd for this one. On Saturday, Netflix hosted the New York special screening of The Disciple: A Wu-Tang Fable at the SVA Theater.

Director Joanna Natasegara celebrated her feature directorial debut alongside Executive Producer The RZA, with producers Abigail Anketell-Jones, Lauren Dark, and Vanessa Kirby, Executive Producer Abazar Khayami, and Wu-Tang Clan members Shifus and Shabazz all in attendance.

Following the screening, Natasegara and The RZA sat down for a Q&A moderated by Academy Award-winning director Barry Jenkins. Guests continued the evening at a reception at Mr Chow.

The documentary tells the true story of Cilvaringz, the Dutch-Moroccan rapper and producer who transformed himself from Wu-Tang’s most devoted fan into the unlikeliest of disciples to his childhood heroes. Natasegara traces his decades-long journey from teenage superfan to trusted collaborator, charting how his relentless determination and The RZA’s mentorship converged into one of the most audacious creative experiments in music history.

That experiment was Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, a 31-track album packaged in an ornate, handcrafted silver box and auctioned to a single buyer in 2015. Only one copy will ever legally exist. Its scarcity was a deliberate act: a protest against the devaluation of music in the streaming era and an argument that art still holds intrinsic worth when treated as such.

The result became one of the most controversial cultural artifacts of the modern era, sparking ongoing conversations about technology, creation, and ownership that are still very much alive.

Natasegara, an Academy Award-winning producer known for The White Helmets and The Edge of Democracy, made the leap to feature director with a story she has described as a labor of love spanning five years.

The film is produced alongside Anketell-Jones, Dark, and Kirby, with Executive Producers including The RZA, Khayami, Joe Gebbia and Jason Ropell.

The Disciple: A Wu-Tang Fable arrives on Netflix on October 16, 2026.

Photo Credit: Netflix