After seeing his community labelled “one of the most dangerous places in the world” by international filmmakers, Naeem Mallik from Mitchells Plain is on a mission to tell the truth.
Naeem, 34, from Rocklands says the “No-Go Zones” documentary has damaged the area’s reputation.
An episode from “No-Go Zones: The World’s Toughest Places”, first aired in 2019, follows a day in the life of a skollie in Rocklands.
It was produced by Quintus Media from Germany.
It is punted on the internet as: “Ghost Town – one of the toughest and most dangerous neighbourhoods in the world. The deadly no-go area is ruled by the Ugly Americans, one of the toughest street gangs in Cape Town. Whoever enters their territory must fear his life. No police or ambulances will help one there. Drug trading, addiction, violence, shoot outs and prostitution.”
Naeem found the video, which is being sold on Amazon and uploaded it to his YouTube channel, BiGgLeŽ W0rTh.
He says he wanted to show mense how the doccie falsely portrays Rocklands and captioned the video: “What you see is bloodthirsty monsters (which is true to an extent), what I see is ordinary people whose lives were shaped to rebel, living for anarchy and lawlessness, life on the edge as a result of dysfunctional families, poverty, poor mindsets, absent parents and no heroes. A product of an evil regime.”
The video was removed from his channel a month later by YouTube for violating copyright laws.
Now, Naeem, who works in customer care at a call centre, is making his own documentary about his community.
“I have so far got some footage of sport and recreation, kids playing sports in the dust. I have spoken to gangsters to get their opinion on things and I will be narrating the history of our community,” he tells the Daily Voice.
“I will also be touching on certain aspects of the coons.
“For most of the issues in our society, there aren’t solutions provided and I’m hoping that this documentary can change the mindsets of our people.
“I have access to these dangerous people in that No-Go Zone documentary so I’m using this to hear from them myself and tell the real stories, that No-Go Zone doccie lied about these gangsters and because they have more credibility, people will believe what they say.
“You are perceived as how they desire, this puts a bad light on our people, and that’s all they will ever associate us with.”
Naeem hopes to release his documentary by the end of June on his YouTube channel.