Protection is the second chapter in Samba’s PRECARIOUS series, a journey that questions our feelings and perceptions in a world shadowed by threat of nuclear destruction. The work began with a simple, powerful gesture: Japanese woman invited a thousand people to stitch knots on a belt, each knot a silent prayer.to protect a loved one from bullet at war. These knots carry care, love, and hope, while quietly reflecting our anxieties and fragile place we occupy in the world today.

This compassionate, participatory performance invites the sharing of memories and stories, reminding us of our shared humanity and warning us about our future.

The Skin of Others (2020) by Tom Murray recounts the life of Aboriginal WWI veteran Douglas Grant through the voice and performance of Indigenous actor Balang Tom E. Lewis. The film weaves history, identity and reconciliation, exploring Australia’s colonial past and imagining a more inclusive future. Prof. Tom Murray is a multi award-winning filmmaker, writer and academic whose powerful documentaries explore history, memory and cross-cultural storytelling.

North Cormorant Island was filmed over ten years (between 2014 and 2024) in the remote fishing village of Kitaushima (which means North Cormorant Island), on Sado Island, Japan. Until the 1960’s the village was only accessible by boat, but a couple of hundred people lived there, rice-farming, fishing and raising cattle. After a road was built, young people began to drift to the cities and now there are less than thirty residents, most of them over seventy years old. The film blends observational documentary, following the everyday life of the village, the rituals, customs and work of the people who live there with a personal, poetic reflection on the director’s childhood in his father’s village in Wales. It is a film about time, place, mortality and human relationships with the land and the sea.

Prof. John Williams is Head of English at Sophia University, Japan, where he teaches courses in film history and screenwriting. Originally from Wales, he studied languages at Cambridge University. After moving to Japan in 1988, he made a series of short films and award-winning feature-length movies.