Matino

I came across these renders for a Mac Book Mini by Isamu Sanada (he is a devoted Apple freak). There aren't any suggestions or ideas on what exactly this book should hold. Except for the fact that it has a very convenient sliding track pad, the design gives away nothing.
 via: YD

When international audiences think of films set in Kenya, they think of scenes of poverty, unpaved roads, corruption and revolution. You don’t think sci-fi. Which is why female director Wanuri Kahiu’s latest film, a short that premiered at Sundance last month, made such a splash. It’s the country’s first sci-fi film ever to hit the festival, which sounds like a ridiculously slim record to win — but it’s one that’s culturally so important.
While often, Western film crews dash over to Kenya to make those films that look like the ones you expect, there’s not really a system for local filmmakers to make and distribute to an international audience. The success (read: $$$) of the South Africa-originated District 9 might have changed all of that. Focus Features launched an Africa First short film program and foreign audiences may be warming up to the fact that the vast continent has more than one story to tell.
That’s certainly what Kahiu and her backers hope. Pumzi (which means 'breath' in Kiswahili) is a film that could have been made nowhere other than Kenya, yet which tells a universal story. It takes place 35 years after World War III, which we’re told took place as a fight over fresh water, in a community of Kenyans who have hunkered down to live below Earth’s dead surface. The story is told through the eyes of the protagonist, Asha [South African actor Kudzani Moswela], who is living in an enclosed underground community. The camera follows the Wall-E-inspired tale of an East African government employee who, when she finds a living soil sample, is determined to go up to the surface to find more.
Of course, having this type of tale set in Kenya is not only revolutionary for the image of Kenyan cinema abroad, it’s a revolutionary statement about race. Who says that the future is a country of stolid white males, with only the occasional black man serving as “magical” advisor (think The Matrix) or foppish showman (think The Fifth Element). Why can’t black women be kick-ass future explorers? Why can’t they be the government employees that control the world? And who says the world won’t be entirely black?
While it might seem like Pumzi is a departure from Kahiu’s last film, the feature length From a Whisper — a thriller based on the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar Es Salaam (which snagged five African Academy Movie Awards) — it’s also political. As Wired noted, “Like recent standouts District 9 and Sleep Dealer, the short film taps into Third World realities and spins them forward for dramatic effect.”
In this case — a lack of water and fresh air, very real threats that could devolve into something like what Pumzi captures.

Film director Wanuri Kahiu is indeed visionary, as well as consciousness-raising, adding to her growing track record of her use of the power of film as a tool to express important topical issues in a manner that ignites reflection and hopefully spurs action.



Kahiu on Moswela

"She breathed into the film unimaginable softness and courage. She became the heart of my heart. Her interpretation of Asha and the story was painfully tender and through it new, undiscovered layers of the film came alive."
Source

One thing I really love about Nairobi is that it is a place of possibilities. The excitement that this generation is creating and defining concepts, spaces and moments in our young history is palpable. A moment like this, a first, where a dream becomes a reality, paves the way for other dreamers, in that it feeds them the courage to continue dreaming. For we would be stagnant and stale without our dreamers.
(original article: sci-culturist)

Trailer:

Directed by: Oxide Pang Chun and Danny Pang
Genre: Fantasy / Horror / Mystery
Cast: Angelica Lee, Lawrence Chou, Siu-Ming Lau, Qiqi Zeng
Country: Hong Kong/Thailand
Running Time: 108 minutes.
Language: Madarin/Cantonese
Also known as:Gwai wik
IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0498311/

Torrent
 
SYNOPSIS
A successful young writer working on her highly anticipated sophomore novel struggles with a crippling case of writer’s block. Isolating herself inside her apartment in a desperate attempt to regain her inspiration, she gradually loses her grip on reality as the bizarre world of her unfinished book comes to life before her eyes.
REVIEW
One of my favorite horror movies to date is the Pang Brother’s The Eye, which told the story of a blind woman getting a corneal transplant through a donor. Unfortunately for her, the donor had the genetic predisposition to see ghosts. Of course, like all asian horror movies, it was remade for the American audience to digest. So if you’re in the mood to have the shit scared out of you, go rent the original; it’s that good.
Ending sermon though, I have come into contact with the Pang Brother’s latest outfit, Re-Cycle. A visually stunning and emotionally driven film. What’s different about this movie than Eye is that it’s not much of a bonafide horror movie but more of a psychological thriller, reminiscent of movies like Jacob’s Ladder and Stanley Kubrick’s version of The Shining.

The film revolves around a singular female protagonist, Tsui Ting-Yin (Angelica Lee), a successful novel writer whose books have been made into Lifetime/Oxygen Channel-esque movies. You know, the type of movies with a lot of romance and unnecessary tragedy, real tear jerkers. She announces a new book, Gwai Wik (or “Re-Cycle”) which is more aligned with the supernatural.
Along with the stresses of writing a new book, her estranged husband returns to her after 8 years and wants to reconcile with what they had. Unfortunately, the movie’s handling with this conflict is set aside for the majority of the movie to put more focus on the events that transpire. So, character development between the two isn’t put in the spotlight until way later at the end of the movie.
Indeed, these events, like the estranged husband, are anything but welcoming to Ting-Yin. As she progresses deeper and deeper into putting herself into the main character’s shoes, things turn belly-up. We are treated with typical asian horror cliches: long-haired ghosts wandering around behind opaque pane doors, scaring the shit out of everyone (including the audience). However, that is the least of Ting-Yin’s worries as she begins to slowly delve deeper into the world of “recyclables.”