Her dream was to make it big in Jamaica as a reggae artist.It finally came true, but not in the way she had hoped.

In the beginning of 2008 she hit the number one spot on Billboard's Hot Dance Chart with the song Calabria, which went on to become a massive hit all over the world. Very much also in Jamaica. At the same time she was the most award winning singer that year in her homeland Denmark with a best-selling album in her native language.

Ironically she didn't live to see all this. Because after fighting for it for 17 years, her success had only just begun to bloom, when a driver crashed her car on the way from performing at a stage show in Jamaica. In the car with her was her longtime best friend Karen Mukupa who survived the accident. Karen was already then working on a documentary film about Natasja, a project which she has now finalized in cooperation with acclaimed filmmaker Andreas Johnsen.

With the aid of private footage all the way from the beginning of her long underground career in the early nineties, the film tells the story of a determined struggler, who went for her dreams in spite of cruel setbacks.

With the use of previously unpublished footage, donated by a multitude of friends and family, Natasja explains and illustrates her own life story. How she decided to become a professional racehorse jockey and suffered a severe accident that disabled her and made the doctors tell her, she could never walk or even ride again. How she staggered back on the horses, finished her jockey education and went on to become the first female jockey to win a major race in her fathers homeland Sudan on a horse owned by Bin Laden. And how as a child she picked up the Jamaican patois language from listening to records and talking to exiled Jamaicans. And went on to become the first foreigner to win Jamaica's prestigious Irie FM Red Stripe Big Break talent competition which launched her as a genuine international reggae star.

A touching intimate portrait of a very extraordinary person, who was taken away from this world far too early.

Duration 54:00 mins

Documentary, Denmark 2008

Directed by Andreas Johnsen Film

Editor Adam Nielsen

Photography Karen Mukupa, Adam Dreisler and others

Produced by Rosforth