Haile Gerima’s Sankofa experience: Man, mission, movie, movement

Abstract

Abstract The collective memory of the slave experience is imprinted on the minds and hearts of many African descendants in the Americas. However, many do not recognize or acknowledge this memory until it is pricked by an image, story or an experience. Sankofa, the 1993 slave narrative film by Ethiopian director Haile Gerima, did just that. Drawing on press accounts, oral history and critical analysis of Sankofa, this study adopts a Third Cinema framework to explore the distribution and reception of Sankofa with its primarily African American audience. This study asserts that Sankofa’s institutional dynamics contributed to an activist movement around the film. Further, the film’s narrative and form, specifically Gerima’s adoption of five key cinematic strategies, privileged the black spectator in a dialectical exploration of slave history.