The topic of “home” goes beyond the four walls of the house­hold. For queer people, it is often a com­plex enigma. In an effort to decolonise nar­ra­tive film­mak­ing, direc­tor Humad Nisar used par­tic­i­pa­to­ry film­mak­ing meth­ods and col­lab­o­rat­ed with var­i­ous queer par­tic­i­pants in Pak­istan and the dias­po­ra. The result is an unusu­al, exper­i­men­tal col­lage that tries to grasp the com­plex enigma of what “home” means for Pak­istani Queer people. How do they nav­i­gate through inti­ma­cy and belong­ing in order to create a feel­ing of ‘home’ in a coun­try where one’s exis­tence is being ille­gal­ized? 

Jazz legend Sun Ra plays with sev­er­al nar­ra­tive levels in this multi-lay­ered futur­is­tic sce­nario. First, the film is based on his music and the con­cept album of the same name. He him­self has dis­ap­peared after a Euro­pean tour - along with his Arkestra to anoth­er planet. After years they return to final­ly free the black pop­u­la­tion from the clamps of colo­nial­ism and cap­i­tal­ism. This mis­sion turns out to be a wild mix­ture of con­cert per­for­mance, thriller, blax­ploita­tion comedy and social satire. In a card game with the pimp king of Chica­go the fate of the blacks is to be decid­ed (com­par­i­son quite pos­si­ble with the Faus­t­ian duel as for exam­ple with Bergman). When Sun Ra is going to lose, the flight into space sets in and it seems that the earth will be destroyed. 

The his­toric 35mm film has been restored by Rapid Eye Movies and dig­i­tized for the first time in the  Acad­e­my format 1:1.33. 

John Coney co-direct­ed PINK FLOYD: GRANTCHESTER MEADOWS, UK 2016, and pro­duced HARD CORE by Walter de Maria, USA 1969. 

Direc­tor: John Coney
Script: Sun Ra, Joshua Smith
Key Cast: Sun Ra and his Arkestra, Ray­mond John­son, Christo­pher Brooks

Already hailed as a future cult film, this lav­ish­ly dec­o­rat­ed musi­cal impress­es with its rich­ness of asso­ci­a­tions. In a fan­tas­tic vision of the future, many con­tem­po­rary issues appear bun­dled and pack­aged into a rebel­lious anti-colo­nial­ist appeal.   

The story takes place in Rwanda, the young miner Matalusa flees after his broth­er Tekno has been slain and sex­u­al­ly harassed by a priest. One night he is sur­prised by beings from anoth­er world, towards which he moves in the fur­ther course. At the same time the inter­sex­u­al Nep­tune drifts through dif­fer­ent places. Both arrive at a hacker com­mu­ni­ty hiding like par­ti­sans in the moun­tains in a camp made of recy­cled com­put­er parts. Their love at first sight trig­gers a cosmic push - trans­lat­ed into vir­tu­al dimen­sions. The cyber par­ti­sans team up with coltan miners and become hack­tivists, prepar­ing to revolt against the resource-rich, cock­roach-breed­ing econ­o­my and gain 5 mil­lion fol­low­ers overnight…  

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

Saul Williams is a renowned author and musi­cian since his debut album, Amethyst Rock Star, was released in 2001. He has per­formed in over 30 coun­tries and read in over 300 uni­ver­si­ties, with invi­ta­tions that have spanned from the White House, the Sydney Opera House, Lin­coln Center, The Louvre, The Getty Center, to count­less, vil­lages, town­ships, com­mu­ni­ty cen­ters, and pris­ons across the world. The New­burgh, NY, native gained a BA from More­house and an MFA from Tisch School of the Arts, and has gone on to record with Nine Inch Nails and Allen Gins­burg, as well as count­less film and tele­vi­sion appear­ances. In 2016 he start­ed the multi-tiered Mar­tyr­LoserK­ing project with an album of the same title. 2019 fol­lowed the second album Encrypt­ed & Vul­ner­a­ble, which acts as the score for NEPTUNE FROST.   

Anisia Uzey­man was born in Rwanda in 1975 and is an actress, play­wright, stage and film direc­tor. She stud­ied acting at the Col­lege of The­atre in France. As an actress, Uzey­man appeared in the award-win­ning films TEY (2012) by Alain Gomis and AYITI, MON AMOUR (2016) by Guetty Felin. Her exper­i­men­tal debut film, DREAMSTATES, pre­miered at the 2016 New York African Film Fes­ti­val and was shot entire­ly on iPhone. She has writ­ten and direct­ed four plays, includ­ing Immac­u­late and HOW/Particle (at La Générale de Paris). Uzey­man has also direct­ed music videos for Sons Of An Illus­tri­ous Father, Saul Williams and Mehdi Cayenne.

Direc­tors: Saul Williams, Anisia Uzeyman
Cin­e­matog­ra­phy: Anisia Uzeyman
Music: Saul Williams
Key Cast: Cheryl Isheja, Kaya Free, Eliane Umuhire, Dorcy Rugamba

“Cli­mate change is the biggest global health threat of the 21st cen­tu­ry.” (Lancet Cli­mate Change Com­mis­sion 2009) This sci-fi short film takes action and drafts a future well­ness par­adise. Taking the form of a com­mer­cial adver­tise­ment, SPA SYBARITE sheds light on dis­as­ter cap­i­tal­ism, where com­pa­nies use a crisis like cli­mate change as an oppor­tu­ni­ty for profit.  

Joshua Ashish Dawson is an Indian-born, archi­tect-trained World builder, Nar­ra­tive design­er, and award-win­ning film­mak­er based in Los Ange­les. He received a Master’s in Advanced Archi­tec­tur­al Stud­ies from the Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia. His Mas­ter’s thesis was advised by the BAFTA-nom­i­nat­ed direc­tor Shekhar Kapur. He has trained under Pritzk­er Prize-win­ning archi­tect Balkr­ish­na Doshi as well as Hol­ly­wood pro­duc­tion design­er Alex McDow­ell. This com­bi­na­tion has led him to explore the craft­ing of alter­na­tive future worlds as an alle­gor­i­cal device to cri­tique and study the present-day con­di­tions of the built envi­ron­ment through cin­e­mat­ic visu­al­iza­tion.  

The doc­u­men­tary fol­lows the men of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Bomb Dis­pos­al Unit (KPK BDU) to the front lines of the war against Al-Qaeda and the Tal­iban in Pak­istan. The law­less province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa — con­sid­ered the gate­way for ter­ror­ists from neigh­bor­ing Afghanistan — is the back­drop of the film. The battle for con­trol of this porous border area remains crit­i­cal to the sta­bil­i­ty of Pak­istan and global secu­ri­ty. Should Pak­istan, a nuclear power, fall into the hands of ter­ror­ists, the entire world is at risk. We wit­ness first­hand the dan­ger­ous strug­gle under­tak­en by the men of the KPK BDU to pro­tect their coun­try against the Tal­iban threat in the land they both call home.

Geeta Gandb­hir is a mul­ti­ple award win­ning film­mak­er and editor from the US. She works mostly for var­i­ous TV pro­duc­tions and often as co-direc­tor. Select­ed films: I AM EVIDENCE (2017), PRISON DOGS (2016), A JOURNEY OF A THOUSAND MILES: PEACEKEEPERS (2015), REMEMBERING THE ARTIST: ROBERT DE NIRO, SR. (2014).
Asad Faruqi is a direc­tor, pro­duc­er and cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er and has a degree in BS Media Sci­ences with con­cen­tra­tion in film and video from SZABIST, Karachi. He has shot a number of award-win­ning films for dif­f­ent TV pro­duc­tions includ­ing A GIRL IN THE RIVER THE PRICE OF FORGIVENESS (2015); SONG OF LAHORE (2015); SAVING FACE (2012); PAKISTAN’S TALIBAN GENERATION (2009). For DESERT ONE (Bar­bara Kopple, 2020) he was a co-cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er. ARMED WITH FAITH is his first time direct­ing a fea­ture film.

Direc­tor: Geeta Gandb­hir, Asad Faruqi
Cin­e­matog­ra­phy: Asad Faruqi
Editor: Flavia de Souza
Pro­duc­tion: Geeta Gandb­hir, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, Asad Faruqi/ITVS, World Channel
Con­tact: Anam Abbas anamabbas@gmail.com

No Eng­lish trans­la­tion available.

No Eng­lish trans­la­tion available.

No Eng­lish trans­la­tion available.

21 DOLLARS OR 21 DAYS 8 Min.

AFTER THE GAME 9 Min.

INVESTIGATION OF A HIT AND RUN 35 Min.

A LEGAL DISCUSSION OF A HIT AND RUN 28 Min.

TWO BROTHERS 4 Min.

VAGRANT WOMEN 8 Min.

WRONG KID 4 Min.

YOU WASN’T LOITERING
 15 min.

YOUTH AND THE MAN OF PROPERTY 7 Min.

No Eng­lish trans­la­tion available.

No Eng­lish trans­la­tion available.