Sankofa

Name: Sankofa
Genre: Drama
Released: May 28, 1993
Duration: 125 min
Rating: 93
Cast: Afemo Omilami, Alexandra Duah, Hasinatu Camara, Jimmy Lee Savage, Kofi Ghanaba

1993

METASCORE

Universal acclaim based on 9 Critic Reviews

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Sankofa

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Movie Details & Credits

Netflix | Release Date: May 28, 1993 | Not Rated

Starring: Afemo Omilami, Alexandra Duah, Hasinatu Camara, Jimmy Lee Savage, Kofi Ghanaba, Mutabaruka, Mzuri, Nick Medley, Oyafunmike Ogunlano, Reggie Carter

Movie Facts:

Available on Netflix September 24.

Summary: Mona (Oyafunmike Ogunlano) is 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 slaveryMona (Oyafunmike Ogunlano) is 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. [Array]… Expand

Director: Haile Gerima

Genre(s): Drama

Rating: Not Rated

Runtime: 125 min

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Metascore

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Critic Reviews

100

Lovia Gyarkye

Sankofa’s marvels range from Gerima’s meticulous editing style and electrifying use of music to his liberating nonlinear storytelling techniques. But I find myself most consistently drawn to the film’s fluid embrace of language, what it reveals about rebellion and how it deepens our understanding of Gerima’s characters. Read full review

100

Richard Brody

With this intricate web of personal and family connections, and the brave maneuvering in the face of the overseers’ commands, Gerima is doing nothing less than reconstituting and affirming the full humanity of the enslaved. Read full review

100

Liam Lacey

The focus of [Germina's] story is rebellion and liberation and treating his story as a sombre fable of a soul’s journey through time, he turns the luridly familiar to something poetic and tragic. Read full review

100

Kevin Thomas

Sankofa unfolds as a kind of oratorio--the film’s music in itself is incredibly rich and intoxicating--in which people deal with terrible cruelty through ritual and incantations of the African gods. It is a celebration of the strength of black people, in drawing upon their spiritual roots, to defy their oppressors--past and present alike. Read full review

TV Guide Magazine Staff (Not Credited)

Sankofa succeeds, on both a personal and a political level, because of the immediacy with which it conveys human suffering. Read full review

Caryn James

[Mr. Gerima's] film is ambitious in its depiction of slavery and accomplished in its visual command. Read full review

Geoff Andrew

While there's no doubting the sincerity of writer/director Gerima's film, one can't help sensing more than a little déjà vu in his account of the manifest evils of slavery. Read full review

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