Ava DuVernay’s ARRAY Releasing and acclaimed filmmaker Haile Gerima have partnered up to bring the latter’s groundbreaking 1993 film Sankofa back to the masses. Per a press release sent to The Root, the film is being re-released in stunning 4k and was “developed from 20 years of research into the trans-Atlantic trade of enslaved African people.”
Sankofa tells the story of Mona, a “Black American fashion model on a photo shoot in Cape Coast, Ghana. Through Mr. Gerima’s imaginative storytelling, she undergoes a journey back in time to a plantation in North America. There she becomes Shola, an enslaved African woman who labors in the master’s house and experiences the horrors of slavery firsthand. In becoming Shola, Mona recovers and confronts her ancestral identity and experience. While enduring monstrous trauma at the hands of white men who owned people for profit, Shola’s interactions with her fellow enslaved Africans are rich with humanity, respect and dignity for one another. Most notably, she connects with Shango (Mutabaruka), a rebellious African man who toils in the fields, and Nunu (Alexandra Duah), one of the few of the enslaved to remember her life in Africa before being stolen and terrorized by European traders.”
Sankofa is available to watch now on Netflix.
