1886 – Gaia (2021)

timespace coordinates: 2020’s Tsitsikamma forest in South Africa

Gaia is an 2021 South African eco horror thriller film directed and produced by Jaco Bouwer, from a screenplay by Tertius Kapp. It stars Monique Rockman, Carel Nel, Alex van Dyk, and Anthony Oseyemi. (wiki)

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“The South African covid lock-down was announced one week into the shoot, and the crew had to pack up the whole show. Some went back to Cape Town, some stayed behind in the forest. Everyone drifted in uncertainty for a long time. The content of the film had such an uncanny resonance to what was happening in the world.” (trivia)

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1843 – My Octopus Teacher (2020)

timespace coordinates: 2010, free-diving in a cold underwater kelp forest at a remote location in False Bay, near Cape Town, South Africa. The location was near Simon’s Town on the Cape Peninsula, which is exposed to the cold Benguela current of the Atlantic Ocean.

My Octopus Teacher is a 2020 Netflix Original documentary film directed by Pippa Ehrlich and James Reed, which documents a year spent by filmmaker Craig Foster forging a relationship with a wild common octopus in a South African kelp forest. At the 93rd Academy Awards, it won the award for Best Documentary Feature. (wiki)

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1830 – Around the World in 80 Gardens (Documentary | TV Series 2008)

timespace coordinates: 2000’s Mexico, Cuba, Australia, New Zealand, India, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, USA, China, Japan, Italy, Morocco, Spain, South Africa, UK, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Norway, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia

Around the World in 80 Gardens is a television series of 10 programmes in which British gardener and broadcaster Monty Don visits 80 of the world’s most celebrated gardens. A book based on the series was also published. (wiki)

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1725 – His House (2020)

timespace coordinates: 2010’s  South Sudan > outskirts of London

His House is a 2020 horror thriller film written and directed by Remi Weekes from a story by Felicity Evans and Toby Venables. It stars Wunmi Mosaku, Sope Dirisu and Matt Smith. The film tells the story of a refugee couple from South Sudan, struggling to adjust to their new life in an English town that has an evil lurking beneath the surface. (wiki)

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“The main source of information on witchcraft of the Dinka people comes from British anthropologist Godfrey Lienhardt, who devoted his studies to the Dinka religion. His article written in 1951 for the International African Institute, “Some Notions of Witchcraft Among the Dinka”, sheds light on the apeth and helps to enrich the folkloric vocabulary of His House. According to Lienhardt, night witches work their supernatural misfortunes in the darkness, an element incorporated in the film when Bol turns on the lights to make the ghosts go away. They can also make their presence known through footprints and place curses on their victims through the staring “evil eye,” a concept that says as much about Bol and Rial’s suspiciously xenophobic neighbors as it does their haunting.

Night witches are the most malicious wielders of magic since their main intentions are always to harm others without receiving anything as a trade-off. Thieves like the one in Rial’s story may be creating hardship for those they steal from, but their deeds are motivated by the goal of gaining benefits for themselves. The apeth, on the other hand, lives only to “eat,” a distinction made to describe the fact that the witch consumes the good fortune of its victims, leaving nothing but misery in its wake. Lienhardt talks about this idea in the context of the community or family unit, a thematic connection to His House.” (read more: His House: Dinka Mythology Explained by andrew housman / His House: The Ending, Monster & Final Scene Explained by hannah shaw-williams)

1648 – The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003)

timespace coordinates: 1899, alternate Victorian Age world

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is a 2003 dieselpunk superhero film loosely based on the first volume of the comic book series of the same name by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill, directed by Stephen Norrington. It was the final live-action acting role for Connery before his retirement in 2006 and death in 2020.

As with the comic book source material, the film features prominent pastiche and crossover themes set in the late 19th century. It features an assortment of fictional literary characters appropriate to the period who act as Victorian era superheroes. (wiki)

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1635 – Escape from Pretoria (2020)

timespace coordinates: Pretoria Central Prison in 1979 (the apartheid era in South Africa)

Escape from Pretoria is a 2020 thriller film co-written and directed by Francis Annan, based on the real-life prison escape by three political prisoners in South Africa in 1979, starring Daniel Radcliffe and Daniel Webber. It is based on the 2003 book Inside Out: Escape from Pretoria Prison by Tim Jenkin, one of the escapees. (wiki)

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1623 – Raised by Wolves (TV Series 2020-)

timespace coordinates: 22nd century. two androids — Father and Mother — are tasked with raising human children on Kepler-22b after the Earth was destroyed by a great war.

Raised by Wolves is an American science fiction drama television series created by Aaron Guzikowski that premiered on HBO Max on September 3, 2020. The first two episodes were directed by Ridley Scott, who also serves as an executive producer for the show. In September 2020, the series was renewed for a second season. (wiki)

Scott responded to a question about the link between Alien and Raised By Wolves during a Reddit Ask Me Anything: “Interesting question but, no, the first Alien story feels like it may be some time before Raised By Wolves, in that the Nostromo was probably financed by an organized global economy. Wolves is about post-global war chaos.” (newsweek)

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