Methane Momma

Award winning Methane Momma is a funk-psychedelic-space opera featuring Melvin Van Peebles & Paula Henderson.

Official Selection and awarded in festivals (non-exhaustive list):

– Aesthetica Short Film Festival (BAFTA-recognized)
– Depth of Field International Film Festival (Exceptional Merit Award)
– Philip K. Dick Science Fiction Film Festival New York (Opening The festival)
– Philip K. Dick Science Fiction Film Festival France and Germany edition
– Aasha International Film Festival (Best Short Film)
– Presented at Clermont Ferrand Film Festival
– Great Lakes International Film Festival
– Wild Film Maker (2024 Selection for Best Autor of the Year – Best Indie Producer of the Year)

The film was made because of the music the London based musicians collective The Heliocentrics (facebook.com/TheHeliocentrics/) and based on the poem of Melvin Van Peebles

Synopsis

Global warming, greenhouse gas emissions, wars… Life on Earth has disappeared. Survivors wander in space aboard spacecraft.
In one of them, MEL, a scientist biologist is sent to retrieve a space module becoming crazy while seeking traces of water on a unknown planet. While MEL seeks the prospecting module, he has an accident, the ground brake under his feet and he is driven to the bottom of a cave… His spacesuit tears up and he loses consciousness.
MEL merges into the ether and then his conscience takes the form of a cloud of methane.
In a cave that seems empty of all life, as he regains consciousness, he saw a female cloud of methane with whom he falls in love.
This happiness plunged him into a reverie…

Award Winning Methane Momma is a green pamphlet that reminds us that we must protect our environment and respect life…

– An Epicurean parable illustrating an apocalyptic future where life on earth has disappeared but lives on in the cosmos.

– An optimistic meditation on Pascal’s perception of the loneliness of the human in front of the mysteries of the Universe and the journey after death.

– A full of humor film where a whacky biologist becomes a methane loving cloud while searching an autonomic space module which became crazy on an unknown planet.

Reflection on the value of life and the importance of the balance between human and natural resources which their lives depend.
The objective of the work is to enable the realization of man on environmental issues.

It is a modern and committed work inspired by solidarity, co-creation and recycling, a thought about environmental awareness and the value of Life.

Methane Momma is a hybrid work that links between music, film, science, ecology, solidarity and love:

– The collective consciousness is now ecological, technological, united and peaceful… There is not a day without anyone talking about global warming, species in danger of extinction, risks related to pollution of soil and water…

– We are now looking for planets to create settlements.
We are looking for alien life and survival programs are launched « every day » into space in orbital stations and even over the moon: Autonomous modules (Voyager 1&2, Hubble, Curiosity and recently the Rosetta mission with Philae which landed on the comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko) regularly send us information about and for space colonization… programs of Mars and orbital flights are now open and available to the most fortunate public…

The film innovates by blending animated sequences to sequences « recycled », already produced and royalty free of Earth and space provided by the ESA and the NASA.
It also mix « recycled » footage from the scientific research (films made with electron microscope by researchers):

– A world first Microbial Art:
It goes with the synopsis of the film: The main character is a biologist who melted into the ether and took the form of the methane cloud after having an accident on an unknown planet…

So, I wanted to combine elements taken from the scientific research in order to mix shots of living bacteries with compositing.
Mixing shots of bacteria, microbes, viruses filmed in an environment of scientific culture, the audience will not know if what they are looking is real or virtual.

The goals are that people does not ask themselves if what they see is real or virtual and that they let themselves be rocked by the cosmic journey of Methane Momma.

It’s definitly a funk-psychedelic-space opera, a musical-concept film using the latest technology to tell a science-fiction story transporting the viewer into an interstellar, metaphysical, mental and psychedelic journey …