The film is set in the East African region, 35 years after World War III, in a world with no water and toxic soil. The story is told through the eyes of Asha, a cura­tor at a vir­tu­al nat­ur­al his­to­ry museum in the Maitu Com­mu­ni­ty. This is a closed uni­verse, over­seen dig­i­tal­ly, out­side all life is destroyed. Water is the most impor­tant resource and urine and sweat are recy­cled. All cit­i­zens must gen­er­ate energy on tread­mills and rowing machines. One day Asha receives a strange pack­age of mois­ter­ous soil in the mail, exam­ines it and decides to plant a seed in it, regard­less of her supe­ri­or’s instruc­tions. She has visions of nat­ur­al life and swim­ming in a pool. And then she makes a fatal deci­sion. 

This film will be screened simul­ta­ne­ous­ly at Unseen as part of our #Junction_Nairobi, fol­lowed by a shared discussion.

Wanuri Kahiu, born 1980 in Kenya. She is a fic­tion film direc­tor, pro­duc­er, and author. After grad­u­at­ing in Man­age­ment Sci­ence in Eng­land, she stud­ied film production/directing at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Los Ange­les. Her direc­to­r­i­al debut was 2006 and mean­while she has received sev­er­al awards and nom­i­na­tions for her films. She is also the co-founder of AFROBUBBLEGUM, a media col­lec­tive ded­i­cat­ed to sup­port­ing African art. Select­ed Fil­mog­ra­phy: RAS STAR 2006 (short film), FROM A WHISPER (2008), RAFIKI (2018), LOOK BOTH WAYS (2022).