Pumzi

The film opens with a teletype caption placing the Maitu community in the East African Territory, 35 years after The Water War. The setting is austere and enclosed, with strict controls and limited resources. A glass jar holds a seedpod of the Mother Tree, symbolizing a possible life beyond the walls.

Within the walls, citizens are confined and must generate power manually using treadmills and rowing machines, producing no pollution. Water is rationed strictly, and personal bottles recapture urine and sweat for reuse. The environment is clean and orderly, yet harsh due to scarcity.

Asha, curator of the Virtual Natural History Museum, receives an anonymous parcel containing a soil sample. She runs tests that show no radiation and unusually high moisture. The scent and texture trigger a visceral dream, hinting that life may exist outside Maitu.

Her sensory test triggers a dream-like vision of a deep pool of water and lush life beyond the walls. The technical results and her intimate sense of the soil converge to suggest that life has returned outside. She becomes convinced the sample may be real evidence, not just a dream.

Asha appears virtually before the Maitu Council to present her finding. When she touches a scanner, the projection shows the green tree from her dream and the pool from her vision. The Council dismisses the visions as dreams and relies on wake-up alarms and medicine to suppress dreaming.

The Council denies her visa, declares her ill, and a security team destroys all evidence. Enforcers haul Asha from the lab and force her to operate one of the energy machines. This moment reveals Maitu's harsh enforcement of its self-sufficiency regime.

With the help of a bathroom attendant, Asha escapes the compound into the harsh sunlight. She improvises coverings for her feet and head from refuse to shield against sun and wind. Even the outside world reveals Maitu's dependence on waste and pollution through bags ejected from the city.

Asha follows a compass toward the origin of the soil sample, venturing into a landscape scarred by plastic and waste. The outside world is difficult and unforgiving, but her resolve remains steady. She moves with a mix of instinct and determination toward hope.

She encounters the tree of her dream as a mirage standing in the barren expanse. Finding nothing alive, she digs a shallow hole in the sand and plants the Mother Tree. She pours the last of her water and squeezes out the last of her sweat to nurture the fragile bud.

Asha stays by the bud, protecting it as it begins to take root. The act is both ritual and defiant hope, signaling a fertilization of life beyond Maitu's walls. Her persistence transforms the barren landscape into a possible future.

In a reverse of the opening shot, the camera pulls up to reveal a tree growing rapidly, seemingly sprouting from Asha's body. The image marks the beginning of life outside Maitu, though the film leaves the exact truth open to interpretation.