ANISIA UZEYMAN
RWANDA
Anisia Uzeyman
Director, cinematographer, playwright, and actress Anisia Uzeymen talked with VoxFem host and segment producer Jacqueline Rush Rivera about being drawn to writing stories at an early age, making her first feature film DREAMSTATES (2016) on an iPhone, film as resistance, from where she draws inspiration as a multidisciplinary artist, and her experience as co-director and cinematographer for the afrofuturist, cyberpunk, sci-fi, musical masterpiece, NEPTUNE FROST (2022) with co-director and composer Saul Williams.
Born in Rwanda, Anisia studied at the École Supérieure de Théâtre in France. She has written and directed four plays, and has worked in contemporary theater and has starred in the award winning film TEY/AUJOURD’HUI by Alain Gomis and in the feature AYITI, MON AMOUR by Guetty Felin.
DREAMSTATES
Directed and written by Anisia Uzeyman
USA/FR/RW, 2016, 1h 14min, English
Cast: Anisia Uzeyman, Saul Williams, Guillermo Brown, Julien Chirol, Christopher Kidtronik, Cx Kidtronik, William Nadylam, Zach Prewitt, Mervyn Sealy Sr., Beau Sia
Editor: Jean-Marie Lengellé
Cinematographer: Anisia Uzeyman
Composer: Saul Williams
Equal parts love story, road movie, and Americana, DREAMSTATES tells the haunting tale of two wayward souls (Saul Williams and Anisia Uzeyman) discovering their love for one another in their dreams and reality while touring the United States with some of the most pivotal figures of the Afro-Punk movement – Sultry, sensual, and quixotic, an underground portrait of America: haunted and hollow. - Flourishing Films
Trailer: DREAMSTATES
Distributor: Flourishing Films Dreamstates page
Streaming on the kweliTV Anisia Uzeyman page
NEPTUNE FROST
Directed by Saul Williams, Anisia Uzeyman
USA/Rwanda, 2021, 1h 45min, in Kinyarwanda, English, Swahili and French with English subtitles
Cast: Cheryl Isheja, Kaya Free, Eliane Umuhire, Dorcy Rugamba, Rebecca Mucyo, Tresor Niyongabo, Elvis Ngabo
Editor: Anisha Acharya
Costume Designer: Cedric Mizero
Cinematographer: Anisia Uzeyman
Writer: Saul Williams
Composer: Saul Williams
Multi-hyphenate, multidisciplinary artist Saul Williams brings his unique dynamism to this Afrofuturist vision, a sci-fi punk musical that’s a visually wondrous amalgamation of themes, ideas, and songs that Williams has explored in his work, notably his 2016 album MartyrLoserKing. Co-directed with the Rwandan-born artist and cinematographer Anisia Uzeyman, the film takes place in the hilltops of Burundi, where a group of escaped coltan miners form an anti-colonialist computer hacker collective. From their camp in an otherworldly e-waste dump, they attempt a takeover of the authoritarian regime exploiting the region's natural resources – and its people. When an intersex runaway and an escaped coltan miner find each other through cosmic forces, their connection sparks glitches within the greater divine circuitry. 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. - Kino Lorber
Distributor contact: Neptune Frost - Kino Lorber Theatrical
NEPTUNE FROST Reviews
“A future cult classic in the making."
– Dustin Chang, Screen Anarchy
"An anti-colonial call to arms, a sci-fi tale that looks at the future but is haunted by the past."
– Leonardo Goi, MUBI Notebook
“Critic’s Pick! Mind-bending. An Afrofuturist fantasia that is also a musical, a science-fiction parable and a hacker manifesto.”
– A. O. Scott, The New York Times
“One of the most extraordinarily original cinema experiences of the year.”
– Carlos Aguilar, The Wrap
“A mesmerizing Afropunk odyssey hacking at the boundaries of gender, technology, and class.”
– Toussaint Egan, Polygon
"A queer, anarchic, and optimistic vision of the future.”
– Eric Torres, Pitchfork
Explore further
Anisia Uzeyman and Saul Williams: 5 Films That Inspired Neptune Frost
https://newsletter.oscars.org/what-to-watch/post/anisia-uzeyman-and-saul-williams-5-films-that-inspired-neptune-frost
Pod Save The People interview with Myles E. Johnson @pharoahrapture
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DMRRcJ2o2TM/
Afropop Worldwide | A Conversation with Anisia Uzeyman and Saul Williams Directors of Neptune Frost
