Sankofa

Sankofa is an Akan (Ghanaian) word meaning "one must return to the past in order to move forward." Written and directed by Ethiopian-born filmmaker and Howard University professor Haile Gerima, Sankofa is the story of the psychospiritual journey of Mona, a self-possessed African American woman who faces an identity crisis. From the African continent through the Middle Passage and the Americas, Mona relives her past and is transformed.

A seductive model in the United States, Mona is posing near a former slaveholding fortress in West Africa for a photo shoot. Far from the exotic setting her photographer hoped for, Mona is possessed by lingering spirits and is transfixed by a self-appointed cultural guardian and griot (storyteller) who won't let her forget her past.

In a flashback, Mona is taken into slavery. She lives out her life as Shola, a house servant on a Southern plantation. There she meets Nunu, an African-born matriarch and field hand, and Shango, a field servant brought from Jamaica who becomes her lover. As witnesses to the brutality of rape, floggings, and lynchings, Nunu and Shango continuously and creatively rebel against