Baltic Cinema: Neptune Frost
Thu 11 September | 18:30
£6 Full price / £4 Students, under 18s, unwaged and 65+
Anisia Uzeyman & Saul Williams Rwanda / USA 105’ (cert. 15)English, French, Swahili, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi with English subtitles | Digital video
Screened here as a response to Harold Offeh’s exhibition Mothership 2.0, Anisia Uzeyman and Saul Williams’ mind-bendingly inventive film defies easy classification. Part-musical, part-sci fi, part-political polemic, Neptune Frost is an electrifying experience which fuses the lo-fi and the high-camp, the grungily analogue and the open-sourced digital.
A vast Rwandan coltan mine and Burundian village-turned-techno-scrapheap hacker encampment set the scene for this non-conforming musical adventure. An electrifying connection between intersex runaway Neptune (Elvis Ngabo and Cheryl Isheja) and coltan miner Matalusa (Kaya Free) create a virtual offspring with the potential to ignite a revolution. The soundtrack, composed by Williams, is our emotional and spiritual guide through overlapping analogue and digital universes, embracing his defiantly experimental, activist and intersectional position.
Blending afro-futuristic and glitch aesthetics, the creative team’s dynamic vision includes art direction from polymath Cedric Mizero (fashion designer, artist, photographer) and producer backing from Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator of Hamilton and In the Heights. Made with an entirely Rwandan and Burundian cast and crew, Neptune Frost presents an intoxicatingly original way to explore economic inequality specific to this mining region of Africa, and the role of technology as both oppressor and liberator.
"Hauntingly beautiful" — Variety
"The future of Black film. Pure cinematic power." — The Hollywood Reporter
Doors open 18:30; Film starts 18:45. Baltic Kitchen is open until 18:30 for drinks, which you are welcome to take up to the cinema.
Please note we cannot offer refunds on this event.
Baltic Cinema
Baltic Cinema is a new year-round cinema programme at Baltic, lighting up our Level 1 Cinema with the best new and archive films. Bringing otherwise rarely-screened work to the North East, Baltic Cinema also expands our exhibitions, offering a chance to explore further some of the themes they raise.
Baltic Cinema has five strands:
Currents presents new work from across the world
Sources expands on our exhibitions
Selected shows films selected by our artists and partners
Quayside Kino is a monthly screening for families and children
News From Home offers films on and from the North East, for the people who live here
All regular screenings take place in our Level 1 Cinema. In addition, you can catch free drop-in films in Front Room every week. See full programme of screenings here.
Baltic Cinema is supported by Film Hub North with National Lottery funding on behalf of the BFI Film Audience Network.
Accessibility
We want our events to be inclusive and accessible. If you have any accessibility requests or questions, please email myexperience@balticmill.com. Ahead of your visit, you can find out about Baltic's facilities and accessibility here.
