Neptune Frost
Directed by Saul Williams and Anisia Uzeyman

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“A blazing original mood piece about humanity, technology, the Earth and our spirits and how they all tangle with rhythm, or out of rhythm, with each other.”—Adam Graham, Detroit News

Multidisciplinary artist Saul Williams brings his unique dynamism to this Afrofuturist vision, a sci-fi punk musical that’s a visually wondrous amalgamation of themes, ideas, and songs that Williams has explored in his work, notably his 2016 album MartyrLoserKing.

Co-directed with the Rwandan-born artist and cinematographer Anisia Uzeyman, the film takes place in the hilltops of Burundi, where a group of escaped coltan miners forms 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 coltan miner find each other through cosmic forces, their connection sparks glitches within the greater divine circuitry. 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.

A selection of the Sundance Film Festival and produced by Lin-Manuel Miranda. 2022, Rwanda/U.S., DCP, in Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Swahili, French, and English with English subtitles, 105 minutes. Recommended for 16+.