Afronauts is a pre-thesis film by talented filmmaker Frances Bodomo.
It tells an alternative history of the 1960s Space Race; it’s July 16th 1969 the night of the moon landing. As America prepares to send Apollo 11 to the moon, a rag-tag group of exiles in the Zambian desert are trying to beat America to the same destination.
This project is based on a true story. In 1964, dreams of space travel led science school teacher Edward Makuka Nkoloso to found a National Space Academy of Science, Space Research, and Astronomical Research in an old farmhouse outside of Lusaka. Nkoloso was so serious about the mission, he applied for a £7,000,000 grant from U.N.E.S.C.O. which never came through.
He gathered together a disparate crew of a 17-year-old girl named Matha and two cats. He trained his potential astronauts by rolling them down hills in 44-gallon oil drums or cut the rope of a swing at its highest point to simulate weightlessness. We do not know what became of them, other than that Matha became pregnant and was taken away by her parents.
Colour photographs are from a Cristina de Middel project via African Digital Art
Black & White are from Afronauts.