Sankofa

i have to say first that i have the complete and utmost respect for this film and the message it conveys. i am writing a large paper about it for my english class and i have put much thought into the story and characters. yet as much as i love

what this film does for showing viewers a real and raw account, i cannot help but notice that this film is, for lack of any other word...cheap. i feel that with a better budget haile gerima could have wokred wonders. however, sadly, the fact still remains that the acting is mediocre at best, the music is horrid and the editing is amatuer. i feel bad about putting these things into writing, however when i critique a film, i cannot ignore the quality of aspects of the film because of it's great social importance. i would like to see more from gerima in the future.

Hailes Sankofa is the first and best movie about slavery ever made. Forget Amistad go see this movie if you can find it. The director of this movie could not get funding for this movie as the content was considered 'too controversial'. He made the movie outside of Hollywood and this resulted in a honest view on the history of slavery. This movie had bad distribution and no advertisement but it sold out at the box offices in America. The movie is named after the bird Sankofa. This bird is always looking back to where it came from. This massage is important throughout the movie; for a better understanding of the present and the future you need to know where you came from and how history has treated you.

Na mate, in my usual style, I won't touch on the plot, characters etc .. This is about me and 3 brothers who went to see this film. Some of us were West African, some Horn African (Somalia, Eritrea, Ethiopia etc), some Caribbean etc.

These usual jovial, come let we make jokes, guys went to see this film. Throughout the entire film we did not look at each other ONCE, at the end we avoided eye contact as we filed out. My jaw was aching from how hard I must have had it clenched to prevent it from opening and releasing floogates of emotions. Those emotions... man, that film showed me just how much pain there is in us, which we have not faced up to (before we were not allowed, but now we can if we are Lion enough to). I'd like to say we all got a wake up call from that film, and went on to find out more about the middle passage which was whitewashed outta of our schooling. But no, interestingly enough unlike the film's shallow model who does face up to the enslavement past, and grows from it. Some of my friends did the opposite and remain just like the model was like in the begining of the movie. And After watching the film -- again and again -- I can understand why.

A very compelling story of what slavery was really like. The sometimes graphic but honest images left a very strong impression on me. No happy go lucky Uncle Toms willing to cater to the Master in all things. This film is one of my alternative favorites but is very hard to find. It should be required viewing for American history courses.

This movie best depicted conditions of slavery that I have ever seen. Hearing so many things in books and from school teachers dillutes the mind a little and makes it feel very mild from the way they speak. I was especially in awe how they made it so real yet didn't even hardly show blood at all. I watched it a second time to make sure; it doesn't!

If you are going to watch this on your own accord (i.e.- not in a class where you can't get another copy), PLEASE watch it more than once. I've heard this so many times about so many other movies, but it's awesomly true in this case! 'You can not POSSIBLY get everything w/ one viewing'.

I'm off to write a paper about this movie, but I think I must rent it once more before I get done with the paper to get even more info; there's just that much.