Ramses (2002)

Ramses Shaffy is a Dutch singer, actor, painter who is the country's most passionate chansonnier. The icon of a liberated and intense life in the sixties is now confronted with the consequences of his way of life. While circumstances have changed, he has remained the same.

As a small boy, Pieter Fleury lived across the road from Ramses Shaffy in Derde Weteringdwarsstraat in Amsterdam. From his attic room, he was curious about the people and the sounds that emerged from the house opposite. Sometimes he looked through the letter-box and was allowed to play in Ramses' garden. Based on these memories, Pieter Fleury set about making a documentary about Shaffy and his life - a life in which passionate music has its repercussions.

Alongside Ramses Shaffy, we see his friend and former partner, the actor Joop Admiraal, and the singer Liesbeth List with whom he formed a successful duo for many years. His former accompanist Louis van Dijk and actress Shireen Strooker also tell us about the uninhibited freedom of the old days they shared with Ramses. We see Shaffy (now 69) in his present situation, dependent as inhabitant of a nursing home.
Amsterdam is the backdrop to the story: the city where Ramses lives now, contrasting with the image of the same city in the sixties. The film is a poetic narrative that shows how the artist and his surroundings affected each other. Ramses Shaffy was left behind in Holland, the son of an Egyptian father and a Russian mother and always felt he didn't really belong. Now he is still wrestling with his loneliness in his city of Amsterdam. At the piano, he sings even more poignantly than ever: the words have stayed the same, but their meaning seems only now to emerge.

Ramses is a co-production of Selfmade Films and NPS. This film was completed with support from the Dutch Film Fund, the Dutch Cultural Broadcasting Fund and the ThuisKopiefonds.