WINDHOEK
The cult film”Sankofa” premieres here tomorrow at the Goethe Centre starting at seven O’clock (19H00) tonight. Entrance is N$40.
The Ghana/UK/Burkina Faso/Germany/USA, 1993, 125 minutes film directed by Haile Gerima, is a powerful and moving masterpiece of cinema that has had a transformative impact on audiences since its release in 1993. It is considered a cult film by African and African diaspora audiences.
Haile Gerima can be considered the most influential African film director in the United States, not only due to his body of film-work, but also in terms of his influence as a film professor at Howard University, Washington DC.
AfricAvenir Director, Hans-Christian Mahnke, expresses delight about the upcoming screening. “Presenting Sankofa to Namibian audiences has been on AfricAvenir’s wishlist since the beginning of “African Perspectives” in 2006/7.
We finally can say: This master piece is showing in Windhoek. We can finally celebrate Sankofa in Windhoek.”
This empowering film tells a story of enslavement and of the African Diaspora from the perspective of the enslaved, challenging the romanticisation of enslavement prevalent in American culture. Sankofa (1993, 125 min) was developed from 20 years of research into the Maafa (the word used for the trans-Atlantic slavery-trade/genocide) and the experiences of African enslaved 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 resistance and rebellion against slavery 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 enslaved castles in Cape Coast, Ghana. Mona undergoes a journey back in time and place to a plantation in North America where she becomes Shola, a house enslaved, and experiences the suffering of enslavement first hand. In becoming Shola and returning to her past culture and heritage, Mona is able to recover her lost enslaved identity and confront her ancestral experience. Shola’s interactions with her fellow enslaved are marked with humanity and dignity, most notably with Shango (Mutabaruka), a rebellious field enslaved, and Nunu (Alexandra Duah), one of the few enslaved 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.
Nominated for Golden Bear, Berlin International Film Festival, Germany, 1993 First prize, African Film Festival in Milan, Italy,