Experiencing Interruptions?

Samurai Blood

Samurai Blood explores the legacy of famous African samurai warrior, Yasuke, through the eyes of a young Japanese woman living in the UK. One day she brings a black boyfriend home and her conservative mother is overwhelmed by shock when she sees him. However, the reasons for her mother's shock are not what you might assume.

  • Elias Williams
    Director
  • Project Type:
    Short, Student
  • Genres:
    Narrative Fiction, biography, history, african, japanese
  • Runtime:
    9 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    May 9, 2018
  • Production Budget:
    500 GBP
  • Country of Origin:
    United Kingdom
  • Country of Filming:
    United Kingdom
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    2.4:1
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    Yes
Director Biography - Elias Williams

Elias Williams is a talented filmmaker based in Bristol. He graduated from UWE Film in 2018 and completed a Master's degree in History at the University of Bristol in 2019. His most recent film projects have explored untold African history, including his recent Channel 4 Random Acts film, in the hopes of educating and empowering young people of colour to engage with history in a creative way. Elias is also the founder of online media platform, mandemhood.com. The platform invites young men of colour to express themselves creatively through writing, filmmaking and music.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

The process of making Samurai Blood was a very enjoyable, collaborative experience and I’m delighted with the finished product.

Samurai Blood is supposed to be the third film in a trilogy of sorts. I have found a unique niche in telling stories from untold African history and I have explored stories from three different continents. ‘Dear Mansa Musa’ is a poetry film about a 14th century emperor who lived in Mali, ‘Ghost of Haiti’ represents one of the most famous slave rebellions to have ever occurred in the Caribbean, and ‘Samurai Blood’ explores the story of a famous African samurai who lived in 16th century Japan. However, Samurai Blood is very different from the other two in form and narrative structure.

One of my key inspirations for Samurai Blood was a film called ‘Further Beyond’ by Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor. Further Beyond explores an important Irish-born historical figure, Ambrose O’Higgins, and his journey to Chile in the 18th century. I thought the film demonstrated a very profound way of exploring a historical story while keeping it interesting for a viewer unaware of the history. The film is a mix of recreations, drama and interviews while also teasing a documentary feel at points. The whole film is narrated by two Irish actors and at certain periods they break from the narration and have a dialogue with the off-screen producers. These scenes inspired my attempts to break from the narration in my film at certain points and to bring the audience out of the narrative. My main motivations for doing this were so that those who might have less interest in the historic story still had a thread of the film to spark their intrigue. I also believe it helps to humanise the filmmaking process a little because as filmmakers, we put ourselves under so much pressure to make the perfect film. It was quite satisfying to reveal that the narration is just someone sat in a room with a microphone. Nonetheless my reasons for using actress, Kiki Nafig, as the narrator also had a bit more depth to them. By showing a white person narrating a story about Afro-Japanese history and taking a keen interest in it by the end, is my way of telling a wider audience that no matter your ethnicity, it is okay for us all to identify with and take pride in the story.