Sunday 25 September 2022 and Sunday 2 October 2022 - Modena by Saul Williams and Anisia Uzeyman (Rwanda, USA, 2021) 105' V.O. with Italian subtitles "A long time ago we lived on a mountaintop. My mother and father were binary stars'. The subversive Afrofuturist sci-fi musical, co-directed by American rapper Saul Williams and his wife, Rwandan actress, playwright and director Anisia Uzeyman, takes place in an otherworldly universe filled with electronic rubbish made from the recycled parts of old computers. Against the backdrop of the wild hills of Burundi, a love story unfolds between a miner and an intersex runaway: Neptune and Matalusa. Out of their meeting/merging a collective of anti-colonialist hackers is born whose aim is to overthrow and take over the regime that is exploiting the region's natural resources. The rebel group moves between different temporal and spatial dimensions, between the real and the virtual, past and present, life in a dream and life awake, the colonised and the free world, male and female. A sci-fi musical takes form and audiovisual substance, following the tradition of the so-called Afro-futurism, the first example of it being Lizzie Borden's Born in Flames in 1983. The film is atypical for a musical production, and courageous in the way it talks about sexuality in the still taboo-ridden African world. Music, for the film, is an integral part of this psychedelic journey, making the tale a true symphonic poem. "I don't think the mainstream media can understand the power of drumming, the ancient codes of communication and the way drums can create intersections with modern programmes and softwares. Rwanda and Burundi have a close relationship with drumming, the interconnection between the old and the new. An interaction that, perhaps in time could go beyond all borders in the world. And in art." (Saul Williams). The film is a scathing critique of the capitalism’s ravages seen in Burundi and its neighbouring countries, perpetrated by a society obsessed with technology. But it also offers a poetic vision of a future in transformation, full of symbolic scenes with celebrations and songs. Do not miss it.
Sunday 25 September 2022 - Cinema Arlecchino, 10,30 pm
Sunday 2 October 2022 - Cinema Astra - Sala Smeraldo, 9.30 pm Modena