sabiff 2025 ankh award honoree
ACTIonVISM!
HAILE GERIMA
Writer, Producer, Director, Entrepreneur, Scholar Haile Gerima is a renown filmmaker of distinction who has dedicated over 4-decades to the advancement of Black independent film. A trailblazing UCLA LA Rebellion student of the mid-70's, and 30+ year tenured (now retired) professor at Howard University, he has throughout his career used his films as critical lessons for his own personal growth and creative development.
Gerima’s Filmworks:
Work-In-Progress: Maroon project and The Children of Adwa – 40 Years Later. |
Haile Gerima
Haile Gerima, has created over a dozen indie films, however, he is perhaps best known as the writer, producer and director of the acclaimed film SANKOFA, which was picked up by ARRAY NOW Releasing, re-released and exhibited on Netflix 20+ years after it opened in 1993. This historically inspired dramatic tale of African resistance to slavery has won international acclaim, awarded first prize at the African Film Festival in Milan, Italy, Best Cinematography at Africa’s premier Festival of Pan African Countries known as FESPACO and nominated for the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film festival where it competed with other Hollywood movies. This film captured the imagination of huge audiences across the United States, and defied the notion that signing with mainstream distributors was the only option for filmmakers to have the public see their films. Guided by an independent philosophy, Gerima practiced an innovative fore-walling strategy in distribution whose success remains unprecedented in African American film history.
The idea of identity and liberation is perhaps the defining goal for Haile Gerima and his vision for an independent cinema. To tell one’s story is to place one’s name on the map of history and to do so while honoring the struggle of ancestors is critical to ensuring future generations have the documentation to create their own blueprint of survival. What inspires this filmmaker is a tireless devotion to the art of independent cinema and the vision of a uniquely innovative cinematic movement that stresses a symbiotic relationship between African Diasporan artists and community. A steadfast filmmaker of both narrative and documentary featuers; Gerima, a devoted husband, father and grandfather lives in Washington, DC and is the co-owner of Sankofa Video & Bookstore, Negod-Gwad Productions and Mypheduh Films. |
