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#SciFiSunday: Watch Nuotama Bodomo's Afronauts

Back in 2014, we published a teaser for a alluring short film titled, Afronauts, a fictionalized depiction of the true tale of the Zambia Space Academy's mission to beat Amrerica to the moon in 1969. Its peaceful yet intense inflection harbors its heart in Matha (Diandra Forrest), who trains to become the transcender. An embodiment of perpetual obligation to demand a future for Black bodies, culture, and aspiration.

Written and directed by Nuotama Bodomo (HBO's Random Acts of Flyness), a distinguished Ghanian New York City-based filmmaker whose other short, Boneshaker (2013) starring Quvenzhane Wallis struck a personal chord for its American Southern timbre with a surrealist shake about a family looking to jar Christian spiritual tradition into Wallis' "problem child". Where Boneshaker meets a visual warmth, Afronauts reverses the temperature with stunning angles and miminal dialogue, making exchanges that are much more paramount to the greater action.

Afronauts is being converted into a feature currently in development.


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