Sankofa

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.

As an African-American male this film really hit home for me. It upsets me that there aren't more films like this from the perspective of the oppressed. I can't believe I didn't hear of this film until recently, the same as I never heard of great Africans and people of African descent like Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop, Dr. John Henrick Clarke, Dr. Amos Wilson, Dr. Chancellor Williams, Dr. Carter G. Woodson and many others like them until recently. This film shows how life today among blacks strongly resembles the life of slaves on the plantation. We think we are free but our minds are stuck in self hatred. I recommend this movie to people of all races and backgrounds, very eye-opening and educational. 10 times better than any Roots or Amistad or Color Purple that was made by people not of African descent

Most older movies and many movies in general like "Song of the South" and "Gone With the Wind" depicted Slavery as an okay instuition. In those films Slaves are depicted as Happy in that institiution, but in this film you see how Slaves really felt. Also you can see their humanity and knowledge where in older films they were depicted as ignorant.

This film is really, really neat for an independent film, and it shows a real slave castle in Gahana. Sankofa is a term that... Well, get the movie and you will learn more about it.

It does a good job of taking you through the film from a slaves point of view. The film uses that interesting "lens" to illustrate just how wrong slavery was. It also gives insight into the family unit among slaves, which may explain the black family today in America. Understanding the history of black families during slavery may be used to help understand the black family today in it's struggles to have cohesiveness.

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.

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.