Sankofa to be Screened In Ethiopia

Mypheduh Films, Inc.(MFI), will screen Sankofa, a prize-winning film in several film festivals, for the first time in Ethiopia at the National Theater at 7:30 p.m. next Sunday.

Sankofa, a film written and directed by Prof. Haile Gerima, an internationally known Ethiopian, deals with the atrocities of slavery, which had a great impact on millions of Africans who endured human suffering, according to Mypheduh.

An Akan word means “returning to your roots, recapturing what you have lost and moving forward,” Sankofa was a winner of the 1993 Agip Grand Prize at the African Cinema Festival in Milan, Italy, the 1993 award for best cinematography at the Fespaco Film Festival in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, as well as the pan-African Film Festival in Accra, Ghana. “Sankofa was also chosen among four giant Hollywood films at the Berlin international film festival,” Mypheduh said.

Mypheduh further said that because of its strong message of African struggle against slavery, Sankofa has attracted continuously large crowd of film viewers in the world since it was released in 1993. “Furthermore, Sankofa has gained great recognition during the Durban Film Festival organized on the occasion of the African Union summit in South Africa.”

Professor Haile is a veteran independent filmmaker widely known as a “New Black Cinema.” Harvest 3000 years, Bush Mama, Child of Resistance, Ashes and Embers, and Adwa “An African victory,” are among his internationally know films.

Established in 1982, in Washington D.C., USA, MFI, aims at distributing films that promote African culture and values, facilitating cooperation with Ethiopian Film Association and with relevant institutions to organize Pan-African film festivals and enhancing the development of the Ethiopian film industry, among others. MFI opened its branch office in Addis Ababa in 1996.

Tickets for the film are available for 25 birr.