I’ve been working my way back through David Naimon’s Between the Covers, and was listening to a 2023 conversation about translation and African language with Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, when I had to pause the pod’ for Neptune Frost. The 2021 Afrofuturist musical was made in Rwanda by Saul Williams and Anisia Uzeyman in February & March 2020, escaping a global pandemic shutdown by four days, like the Deathstar plans leaving Scarif.
The 2022 US trailer from Kino Lorber is kind of choppy, and more about the film’s critical reception, while the earlier, 2021 Directors’ Fortnight trailer gives more of a sense of the film’s atmosphere.
Uzeyman and Williams’ conversation with Eugene Hernandez at the 2021 NYFF gives a sense of the project’s origin, their artistic influences, and the euphoria of pulling it all off.