Part of Music City Mondays.
Multi-hyphenate, multidisciplinary artist Saul Williams brings his unique dynamism to this Afrofuturist vision, a sci-fi punk musical that’s a visually wondrous amalgamation of the themes, ideas and songs 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 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 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 pinwheel of a movie which is constantly sparking and spinning ideas.” —Wendy Ide, Screen International “It does not court our understanding, it does not make following easy, but it does whisper to us and spark connections. In that way, it is like a dream: fitful, feverish, promising.” —Lisa Kennedy, Variety “An Afrofuturist musical that's both a queer love story and a call to action, this is a great example of art that's revolutionary in form as well as subject.” —Drew Gregory, Autostraddle “NEPTUNE FROST resets the musical as a kind of sonic subversion, where the organic nature of intersectionality is revealed; far from a construct, it's a literal rhythm where critiques of heteronormativity sit in radical harmony with those of race” —Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, Alliance of Women Film Journalists
