Update November 17, 2016: Crumbs is now available to stream worldwide via IndiePix (U.S.), Filmin (Spain) and Vimeo for all other locations.
Word from Shadow & Act is Addis Ababa-based Spanish director Miguel Llansó’s post-apocalyptic, sci-fi romance Crumbs can now be streamed in the U.S. through its independent distributor, IndiePix’s website.
The 68-minute feature film, which had a limited theatrical run in the U.S., transports its audience into a dystopian world amidst a desolate Ethiopian landscape as seen through the eyes of its protagonist lovers Gagano (Daniel Tadesse) and Birdy (Selam Tesfaye) who set out on a surreal journey of exploration.
Here’s the official synopsis:
Decades after the apocalypse and after extraterrestrial life had been discovered, the few inhabitants left in a hostile earth have struggled to survive by squatting and rummaging to make ends meet. For many years an alien spaceship has hovered in the skies, undisturbed and dormant, slowly rusting away. Tired of picking up the crumbs of gone-by civilizations, Gagano dreams his life away when not living in a state of perpetual fear. When the spaceship in the sky begins to turn on after a series of freak incidents in the bowling alley that Gagano and Selam call home, our miniature sized hero will be forced to embark on a surreal epic journey that will lead him through the post apocalyptic Ethiopian landscape. As he confronts himself, his fears, as well as witches, Santa Claus and second generation Nazis he will find himself only to discover that the memories that brought him on his journey and that he always thought he had were not really as he had been recalling them.
When Okayafricainterviewed Llansó in February, he had this to say:
I didn’t want to make a movie about Ethiopia, but I wanted to make a movie thinking about Ethiopia and about everywhere else. For me, landscapes and what is happening in Ethiopia inspired me to explain what is going on in the world. Because, you see, every process of globalization that is happening in Ethiopia is happening in the rest of the world. Which is mass production and also the disappearance of meaning and of sense.
The idiosyncratic, low-budget production (although you wouldn’t know it because its cinematography is spectacular) has earned a Nightfall Jury mention at the 2015 Los Angeles Film Festival and the New Flesh Award for Best First Feature Film at Montreal’s annual Fantasia International Film Festival.
The dystopian imagining incorporates an Afrofuturist aesthetic offset by Spanish realism and Romanticism as well as American popular culture references such as Michael Jackson, Michael Jordan and Justin Bieber.
Watch the official trailer for Crumbs or dive right into the first seven minutes of the film below. And if your interest is piqued, then stream it, download it, or buy the DVD, which includes two short films from director Llansó, Night in the Wild Garden and Chigger Ale, at IndiePix’s website.
