Public Program

Please join DiverseWorks and Paraspace Books co-founders S Rodriguez and Sara Balabanlilar for a screening and discussion of Simon Rittmeier’s short science fiction film, Drexciya (2012). Drexciya tells the story of a German man called Thomas who works as a trafficker for European refugees seeking a better life in Africa. One day his ship sinks and he finds himself the only survivor, washed up on the African shore. He tries to reach the next megacity: Drexciya, an advanced high-tech world. Somewhere in the desert, he is stopped by a huge light fence. At the end of his rope, a group of young Africans stumbles across him: Sisay, Kanchebe, and Dylis. After a while, they decide to take him along. Yet their mission also seems to be a strange one. They are looking for an almost forgotten place. Lost in the wide desert they come to know each other – speechless, strangers in their own land. The film's title comes from an afrofuturist origin myth created by the Detroit-based electronic music duo, Drexciya. According to the liner notes of their 1997 album The Quest, Drexciya was an underwater country populated by the unborn children of pregnant African women who were thrown off of […]