Useful Resources for our Documentary Futurism Project, The Next 150

Still from Pumzi
Sunday 21st June 2009. Lagoon Beach Hotel Underground Car Park, Lagoon Beach, Milnerton, Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa. STILLS FROM WANURI KAHIU'S FILM 'PUMZI'! A 20 min Sci-Fi film about futuristic Africa, 35 years after World War III, ‘The Water War’!   A series of stills photographs taken during the production of Wanuri Kahiu's short film, 'Pumzi'. Wanuri Kahiu, an award winning Kenyan Filmmaker, wrote and directed the film that was filmed entirely on location in the Western Cape, South Africa. These stills specifically were taken on various locations in Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa during June 2009. The film is a futuristic work based on a devastated world without water and other precious commodities. The film, set in the Kenyan countryside, questions the price of fresh water, fresh air, fresh food and other commodities and revolves mainly around its central character, 'Asha'. The film also focuses on how to harvest moisture, energy and food in all their varied forms in order to supply the human food chain that depends on these life precious things for their ultimate survival. In the film Asha is a curator at a virtual natural history museum in the Maitu Community located in the Eastern African territory. Outside of the community, all nature is extinct. When she receives a box in the mail containing soil, she decides to plant a seed in it. The seed starts to germinate instantly. Despite repeated instructions from her superior to throw out the soil sample, she appeals to the Council to grant her an exit visa to leave the community and plant the seed. Her visa is denied and she is evacuated from the Museum. Asha decides to break out of the inside community to plant the seed in the ‘dead’ outside. She battles with her own fear and apprehension of the dead and derelict outside world to save the growing plant. Essentially Asha embarks on a personal quest that becomes her journey of self discovery and spiritual awakening that causes her to question her own existential role in this world. The film flows like its other character, 'Water', and leads us all to a realization that a world without water and a life without understanding and spirituality is absolutely no world and no life at all! PICTURE: MARK WESSELS. 21/06/2009. +27 (0)21 551 5527. +27 (0)78 222 8777. atomic7@mweb.co.za www.markwesselsphoto.com
Still from Pumzi

This past summer Cinema Politica announced our newest project, The Next 150, with a call for short film proposals. With The Next 150, an initiative funded through the Canada Council for the Arts’s The Next Chapter program, we plan to diversify our activities by commissioning fifteen short film and video projects that together will help us launch a new cinematic genre that we are calling “documentary futurism.” We’ve had an overwhelming response to our CFP, and with the deadline looming (Sep 30) we’ve decided to provide some resources to help orient potential applicants towards the idea of documentary futurism. To read more about this project and the submission guidelines, visit cinemapolitica.org/TheNext150.

The Next 150 is inspired by two artistic movements, Afrofuturism and Indigenous Futurism, as well as by writers of speculative fiction and non-fiction. Below is a list of links that will help those interested find out more about these inspiring creative forces, but this list is by no means exhaustive. As the imminent release of the Canadian feature film Brown Girl Begins (based on a novel by Nalo Hopkinson) attests, creative work grappling with the future with a concern for social justice shows no sign of slowing down, and the links below offer a jumping-off point into the dynamic, political and cutting-edge cultural spheres The Next 150 builds from. With this in mind, we welcome suggestions for any other books, films, projects, music, paintings, etc, that are missing from the lists below. Enjoy!

AFROFUTURISM

Top image & video above: PUMZI by Wanuri Kahiu.

Monoskop’s list of Afrofuturism resources is robust, especially the section on “Writings” – https://monoskop.org/Afrofuturism

Black to the Future by Mark Dery (a foundational text for Afrofuturism) – https://www.kit.ntnu.no/sites/www.kit.ntnu.no/files/Black%20to%20the%20Future%20(Dery)_0.pdf

Afrofuturism, Science Fiction, and the History of the Future by Lisa Yaszek – http://academicish.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Yaszek-Afrofuturism.pdf

An Afrofuturist Reading List – https://howwegettonext.com/an-afrofuturist-reading-list-2934dfcd8fb0

Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture (book) by Ytasha L. Womack – http://www.chicagoreviewpress.com/afrofuturism-products-9781613747964.php

OkayAfrica’s Introduction to Afrofuturism – http://www.okayafrica.com/culture-2/african-future-okayafrica-introduction-afrofuturism/

Why Afrofuturism is the Art Movement We Need in 2017 – https://i-d.vice.com/en_us/article/vbdgxx/why-afrofuturism-is-the-art-movement-we-need-in-2017

Video of New America NYC talk, “Afrofuturism: Imagining the Future of Black Identity,” with Michael Bennett (@MGBennett), Ytasha Womack (@ytashawomack), Walé Oyédijé (@IkireJones) and Aisha Harris (@craftingmystyle) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEwxTzt33kM

Video of Atlanta Contemporary Art Centre talk, “Contemporary Talks: Greg Tate,” with Greg Tate – https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=48&v=-shHZioArqg

Futurism, Futurity, and the Importance of the Existential Imagination by Paul Kuttner – http://culturalorganizing.org/futurism-futurity/

Black Radical Imagination – http://blackradicalimagination.com/

Nalo Hopkinson (writer) – http://nalohopkinson.com/index.html

PUMZI by Wanuri Kahiu (short film) – https://vimeo.com/46891859

 

INDIGENOUS FUTURISM

Video above: WAKENING by Danis Goulet.

The Indigenous Futurisms Mixtape – http://rpm.fm/music/download-indigenous-futurisms-mixtape/

Decolonizing Science Fiction And Imagining Futures: An Indigenous Futurisms Roundtable with Rebecca Roanhorse, Elizabeth Lapensee, Johnnie Jae and Darcie Little Badger – http://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/articles/decolonizing-science-fiction-and-imagining-futures-an-indigenous-futurisms-roundtable/

Visual Cultures of Indigenous Futurisms by Lindsay Nixon (@notvanishing) – http://gutsmagazine.ca/visual-cultures/

Inuit Futurism (author unknown) – https://blogs.ubc.ca/annieguerin/2016/11/30/inuit-futurism/

TIMETRAVELLER by Skawennati (video episodes) – https://blogs.ubc.ca/annieguerin/2016/11/30/inuit-futurism/

Close Encounters: The Next 500 Years (book) by Candice Hopkins, Steve Loft, Lee-Ann Martin and Jenny Western (curatorial collective) – https://plugin.org/exhibitions/2011/close-encounters-next-500-years

Métis in Space (podcast) – http://www.metisinspace.com/about/

Native American Survivance, Memory, and Futurity: The Gerald Vizenor Continuum (book) by Birgit Däwes, Alexandra Hauke (editors) – https://www.routledge.com/Native-American-Survivance-Memory-and-Futurity-The-Gerald-Vizenor-Continuum/Dawes-Hauke/p/book/9781138211759

Walking the Clouds: An Anthology of Indigenous Science Fiction (book) by Grace L. Dillon –  http://www.powells.com/book/walking-the-clouds-an-anthology-of-indigenous-science-fiction-9780816529827

Decolonizing the future: How a new generation of Indigenous writers is changing science fiction by Kate Heartfield – https://articlemag.ca/decolonizing-the-future-a69ec9b46838

Treaty Shirts (book review) by Gerald Vizenor – https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/speculative-constitutions-gerald-vizenors-treaty-shirts/#!

WAKENING (video) by Danis Goulet – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbmi2ff3MBk

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