This aesthetically daring science-fiction musical—written and co-directed by artist and musician Saul Williams—opens in the coltan mines of Burundi, East Africa, where laborers extract this precious resource for use in mobile phones, smartwatches, and laptops. Recognizing they’ve been exploited as drastically as their land has been, the laborers form an underground band of anti-colonialist hackers and set up camp in an e-waste dump of obsolescent technologies. A futuristic fable with a powerful punk ethos, this genre-defying work reminds us of the political power we have at our fingertips and our collective responsibility to hold power to account.

Preceded by: The Last Angel of History

1996 | 45 min | UK/Germany | Color | English | Not Rated | Digital

John Akomfrah directed this docufictional essay on the history of Black influences in music and culture that argues the drum was the “first Afrofuturistic technology.” His fellow Black Audio Film Collective member Edward George wrote the script and stars as a time-traveling “Data Thief.” Interviews with Parliament Funkadelic’s George Clinton, trip-hop musician DJ Spooky, and science fiction author Octavia Butler are juxtaposed against evocations of composer Sun Ra and lo-fi video art in this cutting-edge exploration of late-20th century Black aesthetics.