Oscar-nominated director Ava DuVernay’s films have often depicted acts of resistance, whether by Martin Luther King, Jr. in the 2014 drama Selma or the 2016 Netflix documentary, 13th, about the history of racial inequality in the US prison system. DuVernay's latest project, Origin, delves into the life of Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Isabel Wilkerson, played by Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, as she writes her groundbreaking 2020 book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents.
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For her Treat, DuVernay sings the praises of the 1993 film, Sankofa. Directed by Haile Gerima, Sankofa tells the tale of a woman who is catapulted into the past and enslaved after encountering an old mystic — offering a unique lens of the horrors of the Atlantic slave trade. DuVernay says Sankofa transcends the typical narrative of slavery, and that its final message is one of resistance and empowerment.
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This segment has been edited and condensed for clarity.
I have to speak to a film that comes to my head immediately whenever I have the opportunity to share work that has shaped and formed me.
[Sankofa] is a treasure in the way that it's crafted, in the way that it looks, in everything that it says, and in the intention with which it was made. Every frame is composed gorgeously and brutally. And it is a piece that I watch often, always before I make anything, and certainly whenever I'm feeling like I want to feel more connected to life.
This is a film that follows a woman, a modern-day woman, as she is magically transported into the time of enslavement. And you watch her as she navigates (through her modern sensibilities) this brutal, illogical, and traumatic system. And it is emotional. It is deeply resonant. It's intimate. And the reason why I love it is because it's a film that deals with the enslavement of African people with an ending that is so radical and rebellious that it makes me feel stronger. It deals with resistance. I think so often when we see films that deal with slavery, a lot of Black folk anyway and myself included, would rather not see it because it is traumatic, but also we know what the ending is.
In this film by Haile Gerima, the ending is resistance. The ending is a picking up of arms, the ending is defending oneself. The ending is all about empowerment, and those are beautiful, dignified parts of the human experience.