Pumzi

I saw Pumzi for the first time in college around 2016, and I've thought about it ever since. It's a short film - only about 20 minutes - but it carries the weight of a feature. Every image is deliberate, haunting, and beautifully restrained.

Directed by Wanuri Kahiu, the film imagines a high-tech future built on environmental collapse. What stuck with me most is the contrast - sterile, futuristic interiors against the backdrop of a world that's long since dried out. It's striking, and it still feels eerily close to our current reality.

Even in 2009, Pumzi was ahead of its time. The way it explores surveillance, control, and ecological ruin feels even more relevant now. There's so little dialogue, and yet so much is communicated - through design, through movement, through silence.

This short film holds emotional punch played out against a surprising amount of seamless (as opposed to obtrusive) world building. Kudzani Moswela's acting made me feel a character instead of see an actress. The sets, locations, and costumes were superb. The writing was well-done and kept me tantalized up to and past the ending.

Sometimes when you say a short film needs to be a movie, you are criticizing it for picking up a story with too large a scope to properly fit the medium. Pumzi doesn't need to be a movie; it deserves to be a movie. Also, someone get Kudzani into another film.

No question the best science fiction short I have ever seen. The fact this was created by a small Kenyan company makes it that much more incredible.