The film is also listed as one of the 500 Utterly Essential Movies to Cultivate Great Taste in Cinema by professors of Film Studies at Harvard University , under the heading " the most essential films in the history of world cinema , 1980-2000 . " " The film was met with great approval by the audience , which was as deeply moved as I was by this epic two-hour drama . " ( William Beik , July 1994 ) " Haile Gerima 's poetic and precisely detailed film takes its audience into its heroine 's life and mind as her moral sense is challenged and changed . No viewer can avoid the discomforting questions the film so eloquently raises . " ( Caryn James , April 1994 ) " The Ethiopian-born Gerima , best known for " Bush Mama " — his 1976 portrait of an impoverished woman living in Watts — has brought a distinctive style and an often raw but always authoritative command of his medium to confront the horrors of slavery and its persisting significance , perhaps as no other filmmaker has . " ( Kevin Thomas , 12 May 1995 ) " '' '' ' Sankofa '' ' '' ( 1993 ) is a compelling historical account of the Maafa , the African Holocaust . This rich film illustrates slavery from the view that many Blacks have been denied , their history . It explores the themes of loss of identity and racial consciousness ; respecting and returning to our ancestral roots ; and recognizing the connections that exist between people of African descent who live throughout the world . " ( Michelle L. McClure , '' Black Camera '' , Vol . 15 , No. 1 , 2000 , p. 9 ) " Clearly , Gerima intends for '' '' ' Sankofa '' ' '' to expand the boundaries of Black representation in ways that include more diverse , realistic , and empowering images and , in turn , enable Black audiences to see themselves in new ways that are divorced from dominant images . " ( Assata E. Wright , Black Film Review , 08875723 , 1994 , Vol . 8 , Issue 1 ) The film was nominated for the Golden Bear at the 43rd Berlin International Film Festival
43rd Berlin International Film Festival
43rd Berlin International Film Festival
Sankofa (film)