Official Synopsis

It is 2100. In the world engulfed in chaos and war whose residents are consumed by terrible hunger, the last fertile land became the subject of fierce battles. Three warriors: noble Wurubenba (Jacky Ido), Shandaru (Cedric Ido), who wants to avenge his father’s death, and Kapkaru (Min Man Ma) craving for power, will face one another in a fight for life and death.

What We Learned: Out there in the future open plains of Africa there are samurai roaming the land being all badass and shit.

Why We’ll Watch: Future black samurai warriors. This trailer took us by pleasant surprise. A quick search revealed HASAKI YA SUDA is a 25 minute short film made by French/Burkinabe filmmaker Cédric Ido. This IndieWire post from November 2011 explains the filmmaker’s biography in more detail. We’re here to talk about the trailer itself. The Akira Kurosawa influence is strong and welcomed.

Cédric is also a superhero fanboy, and plans to make films about black people that incorporate unlikely/unexpected elements, and that are within genres that historically and still currently ignore the contributions of people of African descent.

For once we get a film that steps outside the tropes Hollywood continues to force down the movie-going public’s throats year after year.

But enough of our soapbox. We mostly want to watch it because it looks badass.

When’s it coming? That is a bit vague. All signs point to some time in 2012.

Official site: Also, vague. there’s a Facebook page with not much on it. Once again we’ll point to the IndieWire article and the Live for Films article for good measure.

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