Elvis Ngabo, Cheryl Isheja, Kaya Free
Multi-hyphenate, multidisciplinary artist, writer, musician and performer Saul Williams brings his visionary dynamism to this Afrofuturist fantasia – a wondrous, thrilling sci-fi punk musical.
Co-directed with Rwandan artist and cinematographer Anisia Uzeyman, Neptune Frost takes place in the hilltops of Burundi, where a group of escaped coltan miners form an anti-colonialist 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. Meanwhile, the connection between Matalusa (Kaya Free), one of the miners, and intersex runaway Neptune (Cheryl Isheja and Elvis Ngabo) sparks glitches within the greater divine circuitry.
Set between states of being – past and present, dream and waking life, colonised and free, male and female, memory and prescience – and bursting with energy and ideas, Neptune Frost is an invigorating and ingenious creation, an anti-capitalist allegory, and a call to reclaim technology for progressive political ends.
