TIME HUNTER
DIRECTORS: DANIEL CHEIN + MUSHIVA
A revolutionary spy is dispatched to steal technology from his colonial oppressors to use against them. Can he liberate his people without losing himself in the maze of the diaspora?
PITCH + TEASER
VOTING OPENS MONDAY, APRIL 15 • 10AM PT
VOTING CLOSES WEDNESDAY, MAY 1 • 11:59PM PT
SYNOPSIS
A cinematic journey at the nexus of capitalism, colonialism and tech, TIME HUNTER is a sci-fi documentary that blends cinema verité with Afrofuturism. The film follows Mushiva, a Namibian immigrant aspiring to become a naturalized citizen of Germany, and his cyberpunk alter-ego, the Time Hunter, a bionic spy dispatched by Black Africans to topple their colonial oppressors. By day, Mushiva works as an unassuming creative technologist in Berlin to support his family in Namibia, a former German colony. By night, the Time Hunter emerges to liberate tech used to maintain an oppressive techno-capitalist world order and incite a social revolution through hip-hop.
DIRECTORS’ STATEMENTS
DANIEL CHEIN
TIME HUNTER builds on my interests and growing body of work exploring themes of identity and diasporic longing through the lens of performance. I’m attracted to enigmatic protagonists whose lives reveal the subtle dynamics of social forces and human relationships.
My practice is ever expanding in form and approach as I pursue new projects, but originates from a feedback loop in which aesthetics and narrative are shaped by the flow of ideas between filmmaker and subject, the social/physical landscape (whether imaginary or real), and my own perspective. A strong personal connection to the people I film undergirds the collaborative framework sustaining my practice, an ethos I aim to continue refining as I mature as an artist.
As a director working on my debut feature, this is an ambitious project and one that defies easy categorization. However, I believe non-fiction filmmaking runs the risk of being outpaced and irrelevant if it only aims to observe, document, and report on a rapidly changing world. We must move beyond the framework of capturing a reality and create one as an act of resistance if our work is meant to resonate for generations to come.
MUSHIVA
The distance between utopian future and dystopian present is the distance between global north and global south. As an immigrant, I have the same motivations as a spy – to infiltrate, appropriate, and return home. Like a spy, I become tangled in a temporal dissonance, lost in time and space. I struggle to remember my true identity, my mission, I suffer indignation. These are the anxieties I suffer from straddling the heterotopia that is existing between a dystopic colony and a utopic imperial capital.
Having witnessed the sobering inadequacies of NGOs bringing hi-tech to Africa, I am driven by a desire to appropriate technology from an African perspective. Making TIME HUNTER allows us to take the ideas I’ve explored in music and technology for many years and present them to a bigger audience. Although radical literature exists on the periphery that suggests how Black people are meant to change the trajectory of this world, it has not found a strong resonant onscreen visual echo. This is why I choose to occupy this space – to present an Afro-accelerationist cinematic vision.
PROJECT INFO.
| LENGTH (MINUTES): | 90 |
| LANGUAGE: | English |
| START OF PRODUCTION: | January 04, 2021 |
| EXPECTED DELIVERY: | August 15, 2025 |
| SHOOTING FORMAT: | 2K | 2.35:1 |
| SHOOTING LOCATIONS: | Namibia, Germany, US |
| TOTAL BUDGET: | $1,203,848. |
| PRODUCTION COMPANY: | Waypoint Pictures |
| PRODUCTION COUNTRY: | US, Namibia |
| CONFIRMED PARTNERS: | Princess Grace Foundation, Ford Foundation, Catapult, Sundance Documentary Fund Sandbox Initiative, Facet, Field of Vision, The Asian American Foundation |
| BUDGET GAP: | $808,795. |
| CURRENT PROJECT STATUS: | We are in early production, and have shot more than 35 days of documentary scenes, landscapes, and footage of the Time Hunter in Namibia, Germany, Norway and the US. We aim to finish post-production in the Summer of 2025 in anticipation of a festival world premiere in Fall 2025/Winter 2026. |
PITCH TEAM
DANIEL CHEIN
DIRECTOR • WRITER • PRODUCER
DANIEL CHEIN is an independent filmmaker whose work explores transculturalism and expressions of identity in the performative. Daniel has received support from Ford Foundation, The Sundance Institute, Field of Vision, Catapult, ITVS, Princess Grace Foundation, Points North Institute, and SFFILM, and his films have screened at dozens of festivals.
His short About a Home premiered at the 2021 Slamdance Film Festival and is distributed by Argo. His previous film Basha Man premiered at CAAMFest, where it won the Student Film Award.
Daniel has taught courses on cinematography, editing, and documentary filmmaking. He received a BA in Anthropology and an MFA in Cinema from San Francisco State University. He is a recipient of the 2023 Sundance Asian American Foundation Fellowship, was named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film in 2023 and chosen for Berlinale Talents in 2024.
TIME HUNTER is his debut feature film.
MUSHIVA
DIRECTOR • WRITER • PROTAGONIST
MUSHIVA is a multidisciplinary creative technologist, inventor, and hip-hop artist from Namibia. He has a Ph.D. in Human-Computer Interaction and is one-third of the award-winning hip-hop poetry group Black Vulcanite.
Mushiva’s work incorporates novel technologies such as computer vision, sound synthesis, and robotics to access and project Afro-Accelerationist visions, the dangerous idea that suggests that a radical adoption of technology by African people can counteract the adverse effects of racial capitalism.
Born in a war camp in Lubango, Angola where his parents were stationed as freedom fighters of the Namibian liberation struggle, Mushiva’s political upbringing informs much of his rap and poetry while influences of critical race and post-colonial theory, cybernetics and technology design inform his creative practice. His latest work, Turbo Summation, a manifesto, hip-hop album, music film, and home-made wearable instrument, brings these ideas to bear.
TIME HUNTER is his debut feature film.
DAVID FELIX SUTCLIFFE is a Sundance and Emmy Award-winning producer committed to justice-centered cinema. David’s films have been distributed by Netflix, Hulu, BBC, and screened at Sundance, Tribeca, True/False and funded by Sundance, Ford, Facet, and Field of Vision among others.
David’s debut feature (T)error (Netflix, 2015) won a Sundance Special Jury Prize, an Emmy, an Independent Spirit Award nomination, and was featured in The New York Times Magazine. He was included in Filmmaker Magazine’s list of 25 New Faces of Independent Film, is an alum of the Sundance Creative Producing Lab and Edit Lab, a former Soros Equality Fellow and Pew Fellow, and received the IDA’s Emerging Documentary Filmmaker of the Year Award.
Along with TIME HUNTER, David is a producer on the forthcoming films Black Mothers Love & Resist (Array, 2024) by Débora Souza Silva and Songs From the Hole (SXSW premiere, 2024) by Contessa Gayles.