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The Movie Sankofa
Sankofa Haile Gerima Full Movie

Haile Gerima – Burkina Faso – 1993

Powerful, moving and highly acclaimed, director Haile Gerima’s Sankofa is a masterpiece of cinema that has had a transformative impact on audiences since its release in 1993. This empowering film tells a story of slavery and of the African Diaspora from the perspective of the enslaved, challenging the romanticizing of slavery prevalent in American culture.

This effort is undertaken by friends and supporters of Haile Gerima’s work and aims to raise funds to complete The Children of Adwa. It is inspired by Haile’s lifelong dedication to bring important stories of resistance, humanity, and survival to the screen. American truck simulator - colorado download for mac. Powerful, moving and highly acclaimed, director Haile Gerima’s Sankofa is a masterpiece of cinema that has had a transformative impact on audiences since its release in 1993. This empowering film tells a story of slavery and of the African Diaspora from the perspective of the enslaved, challenging the romanticizing of slavery prevalent in American culture. Sankofa; Haile Gerima is a warrior, and as such in these times, a decidedly serious personality. Still, like many who know Haile, I’ve winced when I’ve seen any number of the photos (Time magazine, Vibe, The Village Voice) that have accompanied the release of Haile’s groundbreaking Sankofa. The images suggest a somewhat grim personality.

Sankofa was developed from 20 years of research into the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the experiences of African slaves in the New World. The film represents complex characters and empowering moments of resilience that assert humanity in the face of subjugation. Unlike Hollywood’s depiction of slavery, Gerima presents the often suppressed history of slave resistance and rebellion and represents the enslaved as agents of their own liberation.

The story begins with Mona (Oyafunmike Ogunlano), an African American model on a fashion shoot at the former slave castles in Cape Coast, Ghana. Mona undergoes a journey back in time and place to a slave plantation in North America where she becomes Shola, a house slave, and experiences the suffering of slavery firsthand. In becoming Shola and returning to her past culture and heritage, Mona is able to recover her lost slave identity and confront her ancestral experience. Shola’s interactions with her fellow slaves are marked with humanity and dignity, most notably with Shango (Mutabaruka), a rebellious field slave, and Nunu (Alexandra Duah), one of the few slaves to remember her life in Africa before being stolen by Europeans.

The film’s narrative structure follows the concept of “Sankofa,” an Akan word that signifies the recuperation of one’s past in order to comprehend the present and find one’s future. Allyson Nadia Field, ucla

Original Title

Sankofa

German Title

Sankofa

French Title

Sankofa

Other Titles

Sankofa

Directed by

Haile Gerima

Country

Burkina Faso

Available Formats

Blu-ray, DCP

Screenplay

Haile Gerima

Film Editing

Haile Gerima

Cinematography

Augustin E. Cubano

Production

Haile Gerima

Runtime

125 Min.

Language

Englisch/d oder f

Actors

Alexandra Duah

Kofi Ghanaba

Nick Medley

Mutabaruka

Oyafunmike Ogunlano

Awards

FESPACO Burkina Faso, Best film

Filmfestival Mailand, Grand Prix

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Sankofa
CHF 19.90 / EUR 17.90

Born	March 4, 1946 (age 75) Gondar, Ethiopia
Nationality	Ethiopian
Occupation	Film director, film producer, screenwriter
Years active	1972–present

Haile Gerima (born March 4, 1946) is an Ethiopian filmmaker who lives and works in the United States. He is a leading member of the L.A. Rebellion film movement, also known as the Los Angeles School of Black Filmmakers.^[1] His films have received wide international acclaim. Since 1975, Haile has been an influential film professor at Howard University in Washington, D.C. He is best known for Sankofa (1993), which won numerous international awards.

Early life[edit]

Haile Gerima was born and raised in Gondar, Ethiopia. His father was a dramatist and playwright, who traveled across the Ethiopian countryside staging local plays. He was an important early influence. He has discussed the unconscious effect representations of colonialism in film had on him as a child:

..as kids, we tried to act out the things we had seen in the movies. We used to play cowboys and Indians in the mountains around Gondar..We acted out the roles of these heroes, identifying with the cowboys conquering the Indians. We didn't identify with the Indians at all and we never wanted the Indians to win. Even in Tarzan movies, we would become totally galvanized by the activities of the hero and follow the story from his point of view, completely caught up in the structure of the story. Whenever Africans sneaked up behind Tarzan, we would scream our heads off, trying to warn him that 'they' were coming'.^[2]

Gerima emigrated to the United States in 1968 to study theatre. He enrolled in acting classes at the Goodman School of Drama in Chicago. As he stated to Los Angeles Times: 'When I was growing up, I wanted to work in theater—it never occurred to me I could be a filmmaker because I was raised on Hollywood movies that pacified me to be subservient. Film making isn't encouraged or supported by the Ethiopian government.'^[3] He felt limited by theater and was resigned, notes Francoise Pfaff, to 'subservient roles in Western plays.'

The Movie Sankofa

In 1970, he moved to California to attend the University of California where he earned Bachelor's and Master's of Fine Arts degrees in film.^[4] He was part of a generation of new black filmmakers who became known as the Los Angeles School of Black filmmakers, along with Charles Burnett (Killer of Sheep), Jamaa Fanaka (Penitentiary), Ben Caldwell (I and I), Larry Clark and Julie Dash (Daughters of the Dust).^[1]

Film career[edit]

1970s[edit]

By the time Haile graduated in 1976, he had made four films:^[5]Hour Glass (1972); Child of Resistance (1972); Bush Mama (1976); and Mirt Sost Shi Amit (also known as Harvest: 3,000 Years; 1976)

Haile's 1976 Bush Mama is the story of Dorothy and her husband T.C., a discharged Vietnam veteran who anticipated a hero's welcome on his return. He is arrested and imprisoned for a crime he did not commit. Theirs is a world of welfare, perennial unemployment, and despair. It addresses issues of institutionalized racism, police brutality, and poverty; themes that remain pertinent today.

For the production of Mirt Sost Shi Amit (Harvest: 3,000 Years)^[6] Haile returned to his native Ethiopia. It is an account of a poor peasant family who eke out an existence within a brutal, exploitative, and feudal system of labor.

His film Wilmington 10 -- U.S.A. 10,000 (1978) explores racism and the shortcomings of the criminal justice system in the United States by examining the history of the nine black men and one white woman who became known as the Wilmington Ten.

1980s

Haile Gerima Sankofa