Sankofa Film Festival showcases stories of the African diaspora, February 12
Mini documentary fest accompanies MOA exhibition Sankofa: African Routes, Canadian Roots
Still from “Remember Africville”, Shelagh Mackenzie, 1991, produced by the National Film Board.
MOA presents Sankofa Film Festival on February 12 from 11 am to 3 pm at MOA’s Haida House. Free with museum admission.
STORIES OF THE African diaspora in the Americas are in focus at the Sankofa Film Festival. The mini fest is being presented in conjunction with MOA’s feature exhibition Sankofa: African Routes, Canadian Roots (running to March 27).
Shelagh Mackenzie’s “Remember Africville”, produced by the National Film Board in 1991, is a 35-minute look at a small Black settlement within Halifax’s city limits. Former residents, their descendants, and urban planners speak out about the decision to demolish the community in the 1960s in the name of urban renewal and integration.
“Hogan’s Alley”, a 32-minute film from 1994 by Cornelia Wyngaarden and Andrea Fatona, tells the unrecorded history of Vancouver’s Black community, specifically Hogan’s Alley, between 1930 and the late 1960s, examining the lives of three Black women.’
Melinda Friedman’s “Secret Vancouver: Return to Hogan’s Alley” is a short documentary consisting of archival materials and interviews with academics and community members about how the former hotbed of jazz was destroyed due to gentrification and urban renewal.
Finally, They Are We, by Emma Christopher, shows the reunion of a family separated by the Transatlantic slave trade. In shining a light on Afro-Cuban songs and dances brought to Perico, Cuba, by an ancestor during the slave trade—tracing their origins to a remote village in Sierra Leone—the 2014 feature film celebrates Afro-Cuban culture.
Proof of vaccination is required for people aged 12 and up.
More information is at MOA.
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