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Netflix to Stream Haile Gerima’s Film Sankofa

ADDIS ABABA – Netflix will start to stream a 4K restoration of Haile Gerima’s iconic cultural masterpiece, Sankofa, starting from next week.

First released in 1993, the film went onto score numerous awards and come to be one of the most influential movies from the region.

Now, it’ll be getting a 4K restoration and released under the ARRAY banner.

“Audiences can explore & experience the epic story told in the landmark film SANKOFA, streaming on Netflix,” said ARRAY, an independent film producer and distributor.



The film tells the story of 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,” ARRAY says. ““In becoming Shola, Mona recovers and confronts her ancestral identity and experience”.

Multiple regions of Netflix will carry the movie from September 24th, 2021.