Midnight Movie
Neptune Frost
Directed by: Anisia Uzeyman and Saul Williams
USA/Rwanda, 2021, 105m
In English, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Swahili, and French with English subtitles
Multi-hyphenate, multidisciplinary artist Saul Williams (star of SlamNation, FFF 1998) brings his unique dynamism to this Afrofuturist, queer, experimental, sci-fi musical. Co-directed with his partner, Rwandan-born artist and cinematographer Anisia Uzeyman, the film takes place in the hilltops of Burundi, where a group of escaped miners form an anti-colonialist computer hacker collective. From their camp in an otherworldly e-waste dump, they attempt a takeover of the authoritarian regime exploiting the region’s natural resources—and its people. When an intersex runaway and an escaped miner find each other through cosmic forces, their connection sparks glitches within the greater divine circuitry. Executive produced by Lin-Manuel Miranda and set between states of being—past and present, dream and waking life, colonized and free, male and female, memory and prescience—Neptune Frost is an invigorating and empowering direct download to the cerebral cortex and a call to reclaim technology for progressive political ends.