The Short Film ‘Neo in No Man’s Land’ Spreads Appreciation for South Africa’s Indigenous Plants, Animals, and Culture 

In 2023, Yolanda Busbee Methvin was looking to create a marketing campaign for a new snack product her health and wellness company, LithaFlora African Botanicals, was selling. What she developed was a far cry from your traditional advertisement. The 13-minute film tells the story of an African girl’s health struggles and journey to healing guided by Indigenous flora and fauna.  

Told through an Afrofuturist lens “Neo in No Man’s Land” blends creative metaphor with traditional ecological knowledge to promote regenerative agricultural practices in the South African fynbos region and beyond. Its message is steeped in LithaFlora’s three-part mission to preserve culture, conserve ecology, and create enterprise opportunities for women in Africa.  

Neo’s journey begins on the banks of the river that provides her community with clean water  

The film—produced in collaboration with a slate of creative interns—follows the young African woman Neo as she travels down to her village’s river alone to collect water. The river flows through Africa’s fynbos biome, a narrow strip of scrubland ecosystem that cups the tip of South Africa, running from the mountainous Cederberg region in the west to the beach town of Port Elizabeth in the East. It hosts extraordinary floral diversity, including nearly 6,000 endemic species.  

Standing in the river’s shallows, Neo slips and is swept into its rushing waters. She falls unconscious.  

Literally, Neo has entered a diabetic coma. Metaphorically, Busbee Methvin said her fall represents her passage into a liminal state, or entrance into the ancestral realm. It also has traditional implications. Busbee Methvin said that in some African cultures rivers and their many motions are seen as providing sustenance and represent life.  

Amidst a medical crisis, Neo is guided by Indigenous flora and fauna 

When Neo wakes, she is accompanied by a swarm of honeybees and a honey guide bird. “In many traditional African cultures across the continent, honeybees are representative of the ancestral realm. They bring food. They bring life. They collaborate between the various animal beings, as well as plant beings, and in particular, the birds,” said Busbee Methvin.  

Honeyguides are a medium-sized bird native to sub-Saharan Africa. They have developed a unique mutualistic relationship with humans in which they use their calls to lead people to hives. The human then breaks open the hive and takes the honey, leaving behind the wax and larvae for the bird to feast on. 

Neo’s travels also take her to a sorghum plant. Busbee Methvin said that the importance of the sorghum to Neo is as “a visual emblem to reconnect her to herself and the indigenous plant biome that she comes from.”  

Sorghum is a highly sustainable, climate friendly, and nutritious crop 

Though Sorghum has been cultivated and consumed for centuries, it is now less prolific than its close counterparts such as corn and wheat. However, Sorghum outperforms its peers in many ways. Sorghum is both nutritious and environmentally sustainable. Compared to similar crops, it is more drought and heat resistant, demands about one third less water, and has deeper root systems, which provide unique carbon sequestration and soil-health benefits.  

Sorghum is native to Africa, and the grain is a cultural, ecological, and economic staple. “The cultural significance of sorghum, traditionally known as Mabele, in South Africa is enormous. While it doesn’t grow in the fynbos biome, sorghum is consumed nationally in both a modern and traditional cultural way,” said Busbee Methvin.  

Today, it appears in many boxed cereals, in breads, and in feed for livestock. Traditionally, it is fermented and brewed into Umqombothi, a South African indigenous beer which is used for a variety of rights and initiations across South African Indigenous cultures.  

“I get very excited when I talk about sorghum,” said Busbee Methvin. “It is such an intuitively brilliant plant, resilient, ecologically adaptive, and sustainable.” It can withstand extremely wet and dry soil and helps to improve air quality and return nutrients to soil.  

“Neo in No Man’s Land” has had a real-world impact on lives 

Busbee Methvin had several goals for the e-book. In addition to promoting a product, she hoped to gain exposure for the women artists who helped develop the film. She also wanted to influence the young women who view it. She thought they might see themselves in Neo and consider the ways they can contribute to their culture, community, and the ecological health of the land they live on. 

The digital artists behind “Neo in No Man’s Land” were invited present the film at the World Biodiversity Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in 2023 and the Fak’ugesi African Digital Innovation Festival in Johannesburg, South Africa, the following year. In Johannesburg, the film was recognized as a finalist in the digital art category.  

“We are very proud and excited that has been an output of ‘Neo in No Man’s Land’s’ story and Litha Flora’s commitment to the triangulation of reverence for culture, conservation of our local ecology, and reverence for art in all of its forms,” said Busbee Methvin.  

More about the artist: Yolanda Busbee Methvin is a South African-based artist and serial entrepreneur. She founded Litha Flora to provide community-based employment for African women and youth, while supporting land health and connection. LithaFlora centers reverence for Indigenous wisdom and traditions and provides hand-made, sustainably farmed, and wild-harvested products from herbs, grains, fruit, and seed. Busbee Methvin is the author and executive producer of “Neo in No Man’s Land”. Kabelo Maaka is its producer, and a slate of professional animators as interns provided storyboarding, character and background design, and more.