Film screening of Neptune Frost, an Afrofuturist sci-fi musical about resistance, digital debris and reclaiming what’s been left behind.
Neptune Frost (2021) by Saul Williams and Anisia Uzeyman, is an Afrofuturist sci-fi punk musical that brings together music, poetry and speculative fiction. Set in the hills of Burundi, the film follows a group of escaped coltan miners who form an anti-colonial hacker collective in a landscape built from electronic waste. Their world reveals the toxic afterlife of a global tech industry shaped by centuries of extractive practices. From this fragile terrain, they resist the authoritarian powers that continue to exploit their labour and their land.
At the center of the film are Neptune, an intersex runaway, and Matalusa, an escaped miner. When their paths cross, their connection disrupts the world around them in ways that feel both digital and spiritual. Moving between dream and waking life, past and present, the film explores how discarded technologies might be reimagined rather than reinforcing the colonial patterns that shape our digital world.
Screened as part of The Foragers, Neptune Frost asks you to pay attention to what usually slips out of view. Foraging is about what’s left behind, what’s overlooked, forgotten or written off. The film does the same with the debris of the digital age, turning waste into a space for connection, resistance and fresh possibilities.
PROGRAM
19:00 - Introduction by researcher Josephine Delali Ofei (VUB)
19:10 - Film screening (105')
20:45 - End
TICKETS
Tickets are available through the Cinema RITCS website for € 8, with a discounted rate of € 4 for students and € 6 for RITCS staff, RITCS alumni, job seekers, and seniors (65+). Cineville ticket holders can attend for free but must still reserve a ticket.
Part of The Foragers: Engagements beyond the Human, an interdisciplinary art-science project that brings together artists, researchers and enthusiasts to reimagine the ancient practice of foraging as a bold, imaginative and future-facing method. This particular evening is organized in collaboration with Cinema RITCS, with the support of the EUTOPIA interuniversity alliance and the Faculty Languages and Humanities of the VUB.
