Sci-Fi Bulletin: Exploring the Universes of SF, Fantasy, Horror and Spy-fi!

New South African dystopian SF thriller Glasshouse will premiere at the Fantasia International Film Festival in August.

It’s the first part of a trilogy of films to be set against the backdrop of the South African turmoil after apartheid, according to co-writer and associate producer Emma Lungiswa de Wet. She told Variety: “A dystopian slate allows us to look at the underbelly of the dream – what’s at the end of the Rainbow Nation We have a long brutal history that we’re only beginning to come to terms with. We’re a newish democracy, a developing nation with a young population, so there’s mixed energy and frustration. Sci-fi and Afrofuturism offer a path of imagining alternate futures.”

Glasshouse deals with the aftermath of an airborne dementia known as “the Shred” which has left humanity roaming like lost and dangerous animals, unable to remember who they are. Confined to their airtight glasshouse, a family does what they must to survive – until two sisters are seduced by a stranger who upsets the family’s rituals, unearthing a past they’ve tried to bury.