Pumzi

Pumzi, the first attempt at science fiction cinema to come out of Kenya, presents a post-apocalyptic world without water, where humans inhabit self-sustaining colonies, maintained by a controlling hierarchy. Upon receiving a mysterious package of soil coupled with a set of coordinates, scientist/curator of Virtual Natural History Museum (which is as contradictory as life without water). With the soil and her daily ration of water, the young woman manages to germinate the seed, and sets out into the desert, in search of the soil's source. The colony was started in the wake of a water war, reflecting humanity's abandonment of the Earth once it had no more to provide. Inversely, this woman risks her life to plant a tree in hopes that her planet still has a future. This message of giving to the earth more than we take from it is one of the central themes in Pumzi. The planting of a seed is used as a metaphor for knowledge and growth. A fearless fighter for both, the young scientist ventures out to plant the seed, watering it with her every last drop of sweat, shading the seedling, and sacrificing her own life to give her barren planet a chance at survival. Despite obvious time and budgetary constraints, this film is beautifully developed from start to finish with a keen worldly consciousness.