Kino Lorber Acquires AfroFuturist Musical ‘Neptune Frost’ By Saul Williams And Anisia Uzeyman

EXCLUSIVE: Kino Lorber has acquired worldwide rights to Afrofuturist sci-fi punk musical Neptune Frost, co-directed by poet, musician and actor Saul Williams and playwright-director Anisia Uzeyman.

The film had its world premiere last summer in the Directors’ Fortnight section of the Cannes Film Festival before screening at Toronto and NYFF during the fall. Neptune Frost was recently invited to screen in Sundance’s selective Spotlight section. Actor Ezra Miller, theater producer Stephen Hendel and Lin-Manuel Miranda are among the film’s producers.

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The film takes place amid the hilltops of Burundi, where a collective of computer hackers emerges from a mining community, the result of a romance between a miner and an intersex runaway. Set between states of being—past and present, dream and waking life, colonized and free, male and female, memory and prescience—Neptune Frost is a call to reclaim technology for progressive political ends.

The music offers an amalgamation of many of the themes, ideas and songs Williams has explored in his work, notably his 2016 album MartyrLoserKing.

The deal was negotiated by Kino Lorber CEO Richard Lorber and SVP Wendy Lidell with CAA Media Finance.

“Williams and Uzeyman are visionary artists in full control of their powers and Neptune Frost is clearly the result of a long process of artistic exploration and political meditation,” said Lorber. “As a film of exceptional visual and aural originality, it rewards being experienced on the biggest screen possible. No work better fulfills our company’s mantra, ‘experience cinema’ and we can’t wait to bring such a unique filmic achievement to audiences around the world.”

Kino Lorber will release Neptune Frost theatrically in the U.S. in 2022, followed by a digital release on Kino Now and all major TVOD platforms, plus home video. Kino Lorber will initiate international sales in early 2022 at the Sundance and Berlin film festivals.

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