Following the award-winning ASHES & EMBERS (1982) and the documentaries WILMINGTON 10 – U.S.A. 10,000 (1978) and AFTER WINTER: STERLING BROWN (1985), Gerima filmed his epic, SANKOFA (1993). SANKOFA received glowing reviews while in competition at the Berlin International Film Festival. However, distribution of the film in traditional theaters proved a much more challenging task, though not impossible. Before 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 African-American community, they sustained two years of theatrical distribution for SANKOFA. Their desire to see collective success among Black filmmakers has motivated them to create independent cinema for decades.

Gerima continues to distribute and promote his films, such as TEZA (2008), which won the Jury and Best Screenplay awards at the Venice International Film Festival. He also lectures and conducts workshops in alternative screenwriting and directing both within the U.S. and internationally.

The Gerima’s bookstore in Washington D.C. is known as ‘Liberated Territory,’ a space where creatives are allowed to unshackle themselves from the binding colonial construct that dictates what art matters and which artists should be celebrated. Founded in 1996 with a desire to create a communal space where marginalized voices take center stage, the bookstore has become sacred ground for self-expression, offering film screenings, book signings and artist showcases to the community. “We wanted people to learn about Black people in Black spaces designed for intellectual engagement. We wanted to create a liberated territory,” says Gerima. A family affair where you can find Mr. and Mrs. Gerima, as well as their adult children, the Sankofa bookstore is an extension of his work as a young filmmaker on the campus of the University of California in Los Angeles in the 1960’s.

Gerima has championed work for over 45 years that is ‘innovatively independent’ from mainstream cinema. He has also encouraged other Black filmmakers to do the same. “Most especially the young filmmakers do not see strength in communal or collective existence,” says Gerima. “They just think they’re going to conquer the world as individuals. There is no world like that. In cinema, it’s always [been], even in Hollywood, a collective surge.”

His point of view is shared by filmmakers such as Ava DuVernay, who has expressed her struggle to work simultaneously independent of and within the traditional Hollywood filmmaking model. “The fact that so few people had seen Ashes and Embers before our media collective ARRAY re-distributed it is a travesty. It’s a masterpiece and deserves to be a part of every film school curriculum in this country. Not including it is cinema segregation, and we’re done waiting on others to acknowledge and distribute the work of the geniuses in our communities, we’ll do it ourselves, and we will do it spectacularly.”

Haile Gerima teaches us, through his words and his art, that there must be new movement and new learning with each generation.

Then, just as now, it was essential to Gerima carve out safe spaces within systems when possible and outside of systems when necessary to explore and create. When speaking about critics Gerima reminds audiences, “No one has gone into our cinematic form. We have critics who do not know how to read our films. Our critics used conventional barometers to judge our work. Even when trying to speak about the work we did with other filmmakers at UCLA, they create a caste system. We were people who were made who we were by the Black community.”

Speaking about the audience-spectator relationship that his cinematic form achieves, Gerima explains that, “We have been inundated for over 100 years by Hollywood to be passive spectators. My idea is active spectatorship that culminates into a historical making. The individual, the community and the collective community enters into the psychological idea of wanting to be a history maker or recuperating or snatching our capacity to be history makers.”

Gerima continues, “The framing is the struggle. Movies can be made about anybody and be used as an instrument to enslave us. My idea is to break down that whole idea, that formula cinema, attack it, and destroy it. While I make my movies, I am fully aware of what I want to be doing; I want to tear down the oppressive form. If not, no one is going to be liberated, including the filmmaker, I.”

Gerima has championed work for over 45 years that is ‘innovatively independent’ from mainstream cinema. He has also encouraged other Black filmmakers to do the same. “Most especially the young filmmakers do not see strength in communal or collective existence,” says Gerima. “They just think they’re going to conquer the world as individuals. There is no world like that. In cinema, it’s always [been], even in Hollywood, a collective surge.”

His point of view is shared by filmmakers such as Ava DuVernay, who has expressed her struggle to work simultaneously independent of and within the traditional Hollywood filmmaking model. “The fact that so few people had seen Ashes and Embers before our media collective ARRAY re-distributed it is a travesty. It’s a masterpiece and deserves to be a part of every film school curriculum in this country. Not including it is cinema segregation, and we’re done waiting on others to acknowledge and distribute the work of the geniuses in our communities, we’ll do it ourselves, and we will do it spectacularly.”

Haile Gerima teaches us, through his words and his art, that there must be new movement and new learning with each generation.