As America prepares to send Apollo 11 to the moon, the Zambia Space Academy in the African desert is rushing to launch their rocket first. They train by rolling their astronaut, 17-year-old Matha Mwamba, down hills in barrels to simulate weightlessness. As the clock counts down to blast off, and as the Bantu-7 Rocket looks more and more lopsided, Matha, the only woman in the group, must decide if she’s willing to die to keep her dreams alive.
Date: Saturday, February 7, 12PM
Location: Held Auditorium, 304 Barnard Hall
Filmmakers Dean Peterson (Stop Telling Women to Smile); Leslie von Pless (Flying Solo), and Rachel Goldberg (Muted, Rosita Lopez for President) will join the audience following the Shorts Program.
Filmmaker Bio:
Frances Bodomo is an award-winning Ghanaian filmmaker & one of the 25 New Faces of Independent Film. She grew up in Ghana, Norway, California, and Hong Kong before moving to New York to study film at Columbia University and NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Her first short film, Boneshaker (starring Oscar-nominee Quvenzhané Wallis), premiered at Sundance 2013 and played at over 20 film festivals including Telluride & SXSW.
