Taking viewers on a journey back in time, the film SANKOFA, written and directed by Ethiopian-born filmmaker Haile Gerima, tells the story of an African American fashion model named Mona who goes on a spiritual journey of resistance to confront her past. Often seen in the form of an Adinkra symbol of a bird with its head turned backward, the word “sankofa” comes from the Akan people of Ghana and translates to “go back to our past in order to go forward.” Gerima uses this symbolic title to encourage viewers to search for the good in the past and bring those learnings forward into the future.

Gerima introduces Mona as a model posing for sultry photos in front of Elmina Slave Castle on the coast of Ghana, without any awareness of the depth of the historical tragedy that took place there. An angry encounter with a local griot called Sankofa sends her on a transcendental journey back through time where she emerges as Shola, an enslaved woman on a plantation somewhere in the Americas. Mona, now Shola, is faced with the choice of continued abuse or fighting back.

“While I was in Ghana researching for SANKOFA,” says Gerima, “I gained an understanding of ‘kra,’ and in the Akan language, kra means spirit. The philosophical departing point of the film SANKOFA is one of forward motion, atonement and in the case of Mona/Shola, revenge. I embraced the idea that a being may never settle with the ancestors while hosting a destabilized spirit that has not been amended or atoned or revenged upon. The kra is the spirit. The sankofa bird is the vessel of the journey. Mona/Shola has desecrated sacred ground in the opening scene and during her journey is revenging something that is disfiguring her.”

At the time of its release, SANKOFA was the first motion picture directed by a person of color to center an enslaved African American’s journey in a feature film. “But to be clear,” says Gerima, “SANKOFA is not a film about slavery, it is a movie about resistance.”

Independently released in 1993, SANKOFA received glowing reviews while in competition at the Berlin Film Festival. “Haile Gerima’s poetic and precisely detailed film takes its audience into its heroine’s life and mind as her moral sense is challenged and changed,” said the New York Times. “No viewer can avoid the discomforting questions the film so eloquently raises.”

Distribution of the film in theaters, however, proved a much harder task.

Prior to the release of SANKOFA, Gerima had already set out on his own journey — one that included becoming an exhibitor and distributor of independent Black films, side by side with his wife Shirikiana Gerima. With the help of the grassroots community, they sustained two years of theatrical distribution for the film. Their desire to see collective success among Black filmmakers has motivated them to create independent cinema for decades.

“When you don’t work together you can’t emerge as a force,” Gerima states. “It becomes what some call a ‘lonely struggle’ and individual self-destruction.”

“It’s our task to find whatever budget we have to make movies, because the more we make movies, the more we release our people from a psychologically incarcerating historical legacy,” Gerima continues. “It’s nobody else’s business but ours to do it. The more we do it, the more we heal ourselves.”

Taking viewers on a journey back in time, the film SANKOFA, written and directed by Ethiopian-born filmmaker Haile Gerima, tells the story of an African American fashion model named Mona who goes on a spiritual journey of resistance to confront her past. Often seen in the form of an Adinkra symbol of a bird with its head turned backward, the word “sankofa” comes from the Akan people of Ghana and translates to “go back to our past in order to go forward.” Gerima uses this symbolic title to encourage viewers to search for the good in the past and bring those learnings forward into the future.

Gerima introduces Mona as a model posing for sultry photos in front of Elmina Slave Castle on the coast of Ghana, without any awareness of the depth of the historical tragedy that took place there. An angry encounter with a local griot called Sankofa sends her on a transcendental journey back through time where she emerges as Shola, an enslaved woman on a plantation somewhere in the Americas. Mona, now Shola, is faced with the choice of continued abuse or fighting back.

“While I was in Ghana researching for SANKOFA,” says Gerima, “I gained an understanding of ‘kra,’ and in the Akan language, kra means spirit. The philosophical departing point of the film SANKOFA is one of forward motion, atonement and in the case of Mona/Shola, revenge. I embraced the idea that a being may never settle with the ancestors while hosting a destabilized spirit that has not been amended or atoned or revenged upon. The kra is the spirit. The sankofa bird is the vessel of the journey. Mona/Shola has desecrated sacred ground in the opening scene and during her journey is revenging something that is disfiguring her.”

“Just as jazz is a resistance music, SANKOFA is a resistance film,” Gerima reminds viewers. “The journey, which is the sankofa bird for me, shows one foot is always in front and the other behind. It speaks to motion, an African ideal of didactic motion, forward motion. Yes the word sankofa means to return and get, but not returning to Africa to mythologize Africa. You claim what you want; you leave the rest behind to go forward. There are many things I don’t want to retrieve from Africa, myself being from there. Our killing each other? I don’t want to retrieve it. Enslaving each other? I don’t want to retrieve that. The demons of our psyche? I don’t want to retrieve that either. Enslaved Africans did not arrive on new shores empty-headed. Like the sankofa bird, those who survived knew how to generate their own nourishment and their forward movement allowed them to do something specific.”

At the time of its release, SANKOFA was the first motion picture directed by a person of color to center an enslaved African American’s journey in a feature film. “But to be clear,” says Gerima, “SANKOFA is not a film about slavery, it is a movie about resistance.”

Independently released in 1993, SANKOFA received glowing reviews while in competition at the Berlin Film Festival. “Haile Gerima’s poetic and precisely detailed film takes its audience into its heroine’s life and mind as her moral sense is challenged and changed,” said the New York Times. “No viewer can avoid the discomforting questions the film so eloquently raises.”

Distribution of the film in theaters, however, proved a much harder task.

Prior to the release of SANKOFA, Gerima had already set out on his own journey — one that included becoming an exhibitor and distributor of independent Black films, side by side with his wife Shirikiana Gerima. With the help of the grassroots community, they sustained two years of theatrical distribution for the film. Their desire to see collective success among Black filmmakers has motivated them to create independent cinema for decades.

“When you don’t work together you can’t emerge as a force,” Gerima states. “It becomes what some call a ‘lonely struggle’ and individual self-destruction.”

“It’s our task to find whatever budget we have to make movies, because the more we make movies, the more we release our people from a psychologically incarcerating historical legacy,” Gerima continues. “It’s nobody else’s business but ours to do it. The more we do it, the more we heal ourselves.”