Photograph by Cristina de Middel
Photograph by Cristina de Middel
Photograph by Cristina de Middel
A film by Frances Bodomo
12 min | B&W | High Definition | NTSC |16:9
USA, 2013
Status: In pre-production
Afronauts is a pre-thesis film by talented filmmaker Frances Bodomo.
It tells an alternative history of the 1960s Space Race; it’s July 16th 1969 the night of the moon landing. As America prepares to send Apollo 11 to the moon, a rag-tag group of exiles in the Zambian desert are trying to beat America to the same destination. There’s only one problem: their spacegirl, Matha, is five months pregnant. Afronauts follows characters that have not been able to find a home on earth and are therefore attracted to the promise of the space race.
Courtesy of Afronauts
Photograph by Cristina de Middel
Courtesy of Afronauts
This project is based on a true story. In 1964, immediately following Zambia’s independence, the dreams of space travel led science school teacher Edward Makuka Nkoloso to found a National Space Academy of Science, Space Research, and Astronomical Research in an old farmhouse outside of Lusaka. Nkoloso was so serious about the mission, he applied for a £7,000,000 grant from U.N.E.S.C.O. which never came through.
Ciné Kenya 