It’s now thirty-five years since World War III, and in the Maitu Community in East Africa water is extremely scarce. The outside world has become a barren, toxic wasteland, or so the powers that be maintain. At the Virtual Natural History Museum, Asha receives a mysterious package which contains a soil sample that may provide hope for the future. Haunted by her recurring dreams of trees and water, Asha escapes Maitu, armed only with a compass and a tiny seedling, in search of life outside.
Pumzi offers a chilling but believable dystopian vision of the future that brings today’s environmental issues into sharp focus. A fantastic companion to The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) and Silent Running (1972), Pumzi will be screened as part of Sci-Fi season’s Afro-Futurism strand.