Samana is a pioneering duo, that integrate the creation of music, poetry film and photography into one unique project
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Mujōkan
“An appreciation for the fleetingness of all existence”
Mujōkan is a contemplative short film exploring impermanence as both an emotional and aesthetic state. Rooted in the understanding that life, relationships, and even the spaces we build or inhabit are transient, the film reflects on the idea that material forms inevitably dissolve — what endures is the essence we leave behind. The second work in Samana’s portrait series, Mujōkan follows celebrated Butoh dancer Marie-Gabrielle Rotie as she confronts the profound transition of leaving the home she and her partner designed together: a minimalist, architectural sanctuary shaped by devotion, intention, and shared vision. After the relationship ended, the act of departing the space became an existential and artistic threshold. Through movement, stillness, and philosophical reflection, Rotie reclaims the house not as an object of attachment, but as a site of transformation — an artistic gesture that allows her to leave behind a legacy that transcends the self. Shot on analogue 8mm film, Mujōkan captures a fleeting moment in time through a delicate interplay of gesture, sound, and architectural presence. The work stands as evidence, as witness, and ultimately as a gift offered back to the house and its space — a final collaboration between body and structure before they part ways.
Just To Be Is A Blessing, Just To Live Is Holy
A man reconciles the chains of a church filled with tens of thousands of objects collected over a life-time, with his uncompromising devotion to a life of dreams and possibilities. ‘Just To Be Is A Blessing, Just To Live Is Holy’ navigates us through the psychological labyrinths of eccentric Welshman Rob Clement, in the first of a collection of short films by multidisciplinary artists Samana. The series seeks to extrapolate the quintessence of each individual portrayed in a quest for anthropological excavation. Each portrait combines 8mm film with psychogeographical soundscapes, fragments of acutely intimate interviews and a reflective instrumental composition, to portray each subject through a tapestry of senses.
All One Breath
'All One Breath' is a super 8 short-film, shot at the turn of the golden hour across the mystic coastline of West Wales. The video draws upon the cyclic rhythm of a divine movement that exists in all processes of nature, as a breath ad infinitum. With whispering voices and fragments of distorted poetic verse, the sparse sonics coupled with natural imagery give rise to a distant, ancient prayer, mobilised by the elements and by time itself.
