The Cinematheque

New Cinema

“The future of Black cinema … Utilizes everything the medium of film has to offer—visually, sonically, and emotionally.”

Jourdain Searles, Hollywood Reporter

Whoa. Neptune Frost, the formally daring, sonically dazzling Afrofuturist musical by multidisciplinary artists Saul Williams and Anisia Uzeyman, is, in a word, awesome. Set in a sci-fi Burundi that portals into strange, interdimensional realms, Neptune tells of two cosmically connected runaways—an intersex hacker (played first by Elvis Ngabo ​“Bobo,” then by Cheryl Isheja) and a coltan miner (Bertrand Ninteretse)—who, together with an enclave of computer-foraging cyberpunks, seed a techno-revolution to topple industry and oppression. The anti-capitalist, anti-colonial, bracingly queer work is the latest installment of American hip-hop poet William’s ​“MartyrLoserKing” multimedia project; the film’s pulsating songs are drawn largely from his same-name album from 2016. The ravishing cinematography, bathed in glow-stick neon hues, is by William’s co-director (and wife) Uzeyman, a Rwandan actor and playwright. Canadian Indigenous electronic collective The Halluci Nation (fka A Tribe Called Red) has a production credit, as does Lin-Manuel Miranda. In Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Swahili, French, and English with English subtitles.

More Afrofuturism at The Cinematheque! Don’t miss DIM Cinema’s June 8 program, ​“Back to Earth: Afrofuturist Short Films,” introduced by Olumoroti Soji-George, curator of BLAC Arts Centre, Surrey.

“A bold, bizarre, and unflinchingly confident debut … Mesmerizing … A film and universe worthy of its place alongside the likes of Sun Ra’s Space Is the Place.”

Toussaint Egan, Polygon

“Groundbreaking … Utterly unprecedented.”

Michael Sicinski, MUBI Notebook