Memory of Princess Mumbi

In the year 2093, a filmmaker named Kuve arrives in the fictional African nation of Umata, where generative AI has been used to digitally resurrect the continent’s ancient kingdoms. There, he meets Princess Mumbi, a magnetic young woman torn between royal duty and her dream of becoming an actress. As their encounter unfolds, Kuve is drawn into a layered triangle of memory, mythology, and authorship — one that quietly interrogates the role of technology in shaping historical narratives. What does it mean to revive the past with tools that never knew it?

Directed by Swiss-Kenyan filmmaker Damien Hauser, Memory of Princess Mumbi is a daringly self-reflexive debut that blends mockumentary, romantic drama, and political satire into a low-budget speculative fable. Entirely self-produced and built with digital worldbuilding tools, the film is less interested in prediction than in provocation. At its heart is a question that lingers long after the credits: Can storytelling remain sovereign in an age of artificial memory, or has the archive already been rewritten?

Simply a joy to watch… The AI creations are highly imaginative, the ’plot’, with its film-within-a-film-within-a-film structure, is deliciously intricate, and Hauser is not afraid to throw in a musical number, a nod to silent cinema, made-up biographies of non-existing filmmakers, and animated art. Memory of Princess Mumbi is unlike any other film. Perhaps it is a work from the future, a future where filmmaking is no longer dependent on large budgets, and where creativity and imagination coupled with a group of engaging actors is enough to make a film that the masses can enjoy.

Marc van de Klashorst, International Cinephile Society

Memory of Princess Mumbi looks consistently stunning, cramming blockbuster-level production design into an 80-minute low-budget feature… The meticulous level of detail, colour and symmetry here frequently recalls Wes Anderson at his most playful. Hauser’s fourth feature has some of the gaucheness we might expect from a 24-year-old one-man film crew with scant resources and limited experience. There are plot holes, ragged edges and stilted performances here. But they scarcely matter when the end result is so formally inventive, tearing up cinematic conventions, keeping us on our toes with a feast of images and ideas.

Stephen Dalton, The Film Verdict