An unconventional SF musical “Neptune Frost” (theater) by Saul Williams, a veteran musician and actor from New York, and Anisia Uzeyman, an actress and filmmaker in Rwanda. We will investigate the concept of technological progress from the perspective of the people who live in the places used to achieve it.
Set in the mountains of Burundi, Africa, their afro-futureist vision, premiered at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival, follows former miners and intersex hackers who lead the rebellion against oppressive forces. The area they live in is the tactile intersection of digital interfaces infused with realism and magical realism.
Speaking on a video call from his home in Los Angeles, the duo unveiled some of the key concepts of their unique film. The following is an edited excerpt from the conversation.
“Neptune Frost” was first conceived for the stage until the producer persuaded you to turn the concept into a movie. How did the film medium reshape the project?
SAUL WILLIAMS: It made it possible for us to imagine what it would be like to shoot on location. We were writing a story about Burundi, but we knew we couldn’t shoot in Burundi because of political instability. However, in neighboring Rwanda, where Anisia was born, the door was open. We arrived there in 2016 to film Sizzle Lille and found many of the Burundian refugees who are students, artists and activists in Kigali. I was excited to see places and faces that people had never actually seen on the screen.
Anisia Youseyman: I wanted to share the existing beauty and language of Rwanda that I was intimate with. We have an ancestral tradition of poetry.
Williams: After writing the script, working with poets and writers in Rwanda and Burundi to translate the text into Kinyarwanda and Kirundi was a special experience. This movie allowed us to share more than the stage.
Did you draw from certain historical events related to Burundi or larger ideas about African neocolonialism in creating this complex story?
Williams: When we started conceptualizing the project in 2011, it was followed by the Arab Spring, Chelsea Manning, and WikiLeaks. On the continent, American publishers arriving in countries such as Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda provided money to pass anti-LGBT laws.I also learned about e-waste camps [in Africa]A village-sized camp with a pile of towers, motherboards, keyboards, where our technology dies. I learned that they are closely related to the mining industry and that digital technology is deeply rooted in the use of analog.
This is related to what has happened on the continent for centuries. We wake up every morning and say, “I can’t start the day without coffee.” I don’t know where the coffee came from, where the rubber on the tires came from, or where the things that made the computer work came from. .. The spirit of protest in the movie comes from what happened while we were writing it. We wanted to incorporate these things, connect the dots between these different ideas, and show that they were all part of the same timeline.
Given that music here represents an essential aspect of storytelling, can you explain the thought process behind the composition?
Williams: Music came first. I grew up in a musical. One of my goals was to create something that responded to the musical interests that were part of my quest as an artist. Since the drum itself is used for wireless communication, I was interested in polyrhythm because I combined the rhythm and coding of the drum. We experimented with drum coding ideas from a computer programming perspective, exploring gender issues beyond binary.
UZEYMAN: Music was also a great way to communicate with all singers and musicians, actors. They have a very privileged relationship to rhythm. It was a way to work towards their own understanding of the characters they play and how their voices evolve in the arch of the story.
Costumes and set decorations have impressive visual qualities that are world-class and recognizable. How were these designed?
UZEYMAN: We met Cedric Mizero, A young designer behind these costumes and decorations in Rwanda in 2016. After hearing what we wanted to tell, he came back the next morning with his motherboard sandals. Cedric’s work also influenced his film writing, as he recycled with the villagers and transformed what was considered waste into art installations and zero-waste fashion.
Williams: For example, make a backpack from a water container or use an African wood carving as the gun used in the movie.
How can Afro Futureist’s art, which incorporates folklore and culture into futurist metaphors, address today’s problems from decolonized lenses?
Williams: I have experienced and understood the fluidity of things in indigenous cultures that transcend the projections of the West. These things have long been part of reality and narrative in Africa and elsewhere, but the rigidity of the lack of imagination in the West has closed the door to those ancient myths and myths. It is very important for us not to participate in poverty porn and what whites expect from Africa.
UZEYMAN: From the continental artist’s point of view, what matters is not the story that you are waiting for us to talk or that you are ready to fund, but the possibility of telling anything we want to tell. We want to tell all the stories from our point of view, such as science fiction and historical drama, freed from Western framing.
