Multi-hyphenate, slam poet/actor/composer Saul Williams and co-director Rwandan-born artist Anisia Uzeyman, have brought a unique dynamism to this Afrofuturist vision, a sci-fi punk musical that is a visually wondrous amalgamation of themes, ideas, and songs.

Neptune Frost takes place amidst the hilltops of Burundi, where a collective of computer hackers emerges from within a coltan mining community, a result of the romance between a miner and an intersex runaway. Hypnotizing in its neon visuals, its fusion of eclectic tribal and modern styles, and an original song score by co-director Williams, Neptune Frost poetically develops stories of pain, love, and adversity on an exquisite cinematic canvas. Set between states of being, past and present, dream and waking life, colonized and free, male and female, memory and prescience, Neptune Frost is an invigorating and empowering direct download to the cerebral cortex and a call to reclaim technology for progressive political ends. If today’s world is fueled by technology and obsessed with the future, then this film is vibrant and capacious enough to tell the complex story of how African miners digging for the rare earth minerals make up the digital network we currently depend on.