As part of the 20th anniversary celebration of Africa Week, the Organization of African Students’ Interests & Solidarity screened director/producer Haile Gerima’s film “Sankofa” on Tuesday night.
The film offers a naturalistic depiction of the African slave’s experience in post-colonial America in an attempt to connect modern African Americans to their tumultuous past.
The title is described by producers as an Akan word meaning, “We must go back and reclaim our past so we can move forward; so we understand why and how we came to be who we are today.”
Gerima proclaims this purpose from the outset by superimposing the opening credits over a montage of tribal artifacts, accompanied by a monologue in which a semi-threatening voice pleads, “Claim your story; spirit of the dead, rise up and tell your story.”
The present-day narrative begins by presenting two opposing characters.
The first, Sankofa, is the self-appointed guardian of a castle where slaves used to be imprisoned by white colonists until ships arrived to transport them to the Americas.
The second, Mona, is a supermodel on location for a photo shoot at the castle and is unaware of its former use.
A confrontation between the two characters, in which Sankofa commands the unassuming Mona to “return to her past,” sets the film’s themes.
As the castle begins to haunt Mona, she sees visions of imprisoned slaves before, finally, she is “mistaken” for a slave and branded, all while modern gospel music moans in the background.
