Murray State University’s Cinema International program is screening the 1993 Ethiopian drama "Sankofa" this week, which follows the journey of a Black American fashion model on a photo shoot in Ghana who is surrealistically transported back in time to a plantation in the West Indies where she experiences slavery, and eventually the redemptive power of rebellion.
The Los Angeles Times describes filmmaker and Ethiopian native Haile Gerima’s direction style as an often raw but always authoritative command of his medium to confront the horrors of slavery and its persisting significance, perhaps as no other filmmaker has."
Executive Director of Cinema International Therese Saint Paul said that “Sankofa” is about the need to learn, understand, and accept the past before moving forward.
“I call it an African epic, because it's also a dream trip, or perhaps a nightmare trip, by an African American woman who was a model on a photoshoot in Ghana,” Saint Paul said. “At the Cape Coast there is a fortress and is a touristic site. But it's also a place where Africans were deported into slavery. So, this film is a mix of reality, which is harsh reality, but also there is magical realism and spiritual imagination.”
The protagonist Mona is then transported back to colonial era Africa with a booming slave trade.
“During the few hours of her visit, she is transported into the time of perhaps her ancestors. And she is deported along with the chained Africans that are being enslaved. And so she's wondering what the heck's going on and suddenly she's living in her own body and mind and is experiencing her ancestral history.”
"Sankofa" is being screened Thursday night and Saturday night at 7:30 pm in Faculty Hall room 208 on the campus of Murray State University.
