Thu Feb 10
7.00pm
7.00pm
Four Portraits – The Watermelon Woman [In-Person Only]
film
$0–25 Sliding scale general admission; pay what you can!
This special presentation by Ava DuVernay’s ARRAY collective includes a community discussion about the central theme of the film: developing a relationship with the past that grants a fuller understanding of the throughlines of one’s history and heritage across time. Read more below!
** Presented in collaboration with ARRAY as part of 28 Days of Sankofa, in partnership with Sankofa Film Society **
Sankofa follows Mona (Oyafunmike Ogunlano), a Black American fashion model on a photo shoot in Cape Coast, Ghana. Through Haile Gerima’s imaginative storytelling, she undergoes a journey back in time to a plantation in North America. There she becomes Shola, an enslaved African woman who labors in the master’s house and experiences the horrors of slavery firsthand. In becoming Shola, Mona recovers and confronts her ancestral identity and experience. While enduring monstrous trauma at the hands of white men who owned people for profit, Shola’s interactions with her fellow enslaved Africans are rich with humanity, respect and dignity for one another. Most notably, she connects with Shango (Mutabaruka), a rebellious African man, and Nunu (Alexandra Duah), one of the few of the enslaved to remember her life in Africa before being stolen and terrorized by European traders.
(Haile Gerima, US, Ghana, Burkina Faso, United Kingdom, Germany & Ethiopia, 1993, 125 min, in English & Akan with English subtitles)
“Sankofa is not a film about slavery, it’s a movie about resistance.” – Haile Gerima
Every person has a history, a family, a name, and a community. Developing a relationship with the past through a study of the history of our families and communities grants a fuller understanding of how our individual and collective past impacts our daily lives.
The way your personal story is told — now and in the future — can be, and should be, steered by you.
Sankofa opens with an invocation, an invitation to “step out and tell your story”:
We invite you to consider these prompts and send us a video to be shown at the event. We’ll share as many stories as time allows!
Time limit: 1-3 min
Deadline: Feb. 25
Founded by Karen Toering and Jackie Moscou, former Artistic Director of Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute, Sankofa Film Society continues Moscou and Toering’s advocacy of independent films by people of color and women filmmakers. Sankofa Film Society believes that those most impacted are the best caretakers of their own stories.
Sankofa Film Society is also the Seattle home for films from ARRAY, the independent distribution company founded by Ava DuVernay.
Look here first for provocative indie film and discussion, opportunities for membership, travel and a wide variety of ways to connect in community with melanin-rich films.
Filmmaker Ava DuVernay’s media collective, ARRAY, recently released a restoration of Haile Gerima’s 1993 film, Sankofa.
In honor of Black History Month, ARRAY has invited partner organizations around the country to screen the movie and learn more about the accompanying learning guide they’ve created to further exploration and dialogue around community history, personal history, acts of resistance, and Haile Gerima’s larger body of work.