Sankofa Film and Video Collective was founded in 1983 by

Isaac Julien Sir Isaac Julien (born 21 February 1960Annette Kuhn"Julien, Isaac (1960–)" BFI Screen Online.) is a British installation artist, filmmaker, and Distinguished Professor of the Arts at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Early life Juli ...

, Martina Attille,

Maureen Blackwood Maureen Blackwood (born 30 July 1960) is a British filmmaker and founding member of Sankofa Film and Video Collective – a collective dedicated to promoting and producing black films by black directors. Her films consist of experimental narrati ...

,Carol Brennan
"Blackwood, Maureen 1960–"
Contemporary Black Biography. 2003. Encyclopedia.com. Rretrieved 28 February 2025.

Nadine Marsh-Edwards Nadine Marsh-Edwards is a British film producer. She has been described as "a pivotal force in developing a black British cinema". Life Marsh-Edwards graduated from Goldsmiths College before cofounding the Sankofa Film and Video Collective with ...

and Robert Crusz, who all graduated from various art colleges in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

. Supported by the

Greater London Council The Greater London Council (GLC) was the top-tier local government administrative body for Greater London from 1965 to 1986. It replaced the earlier London County Council (LCC) which had covered a much smaller area. The GLC was dissolved in 198 ...

, the

British Film Institute The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves filmmaking and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery to encourage film production, ...

and

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...

, among others, Sankofa was "dedicated to developing an independent black film culture in the areas of production, exhibition and audience". The name and the logo of the collective derive from the

Akan Akan may refer to: People and languages *Akan people, an ethnic group in Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire *Akan languages, a language group within the wider Central Tano languages *Kwa languages, a language group which includes Akan *Central Tano language ...

word ''

sankofa (pronounced ''SAHN''-koh-fah) is a word in the Twi language of Ghana meaning “to retrieve" (literally "go back and get"; - to return; - to go; - to fetch, to seek and take) and also refers to the Bono people, Bono Adinkra symbols, Adinkra ...

'' from

Ghana Ghana, officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It is situated along the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, and shares borders with Côte d’Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, and Togo to t ...

, meaning "return and fetch it", represented figuratively as a bird turning its head back towards its tail, to signify "going back into the past and discovering knowledge that will be of benefit to the people in the future."

Background

The formation of Sankofa Film and Video Collective, like that of the

Black Audio Film Collective The Black Audio Film Collective (BAFC), founded in 1982 and active until 1998, comprised seven Black British and diaspora multimedia artists and film makers: John Akomfrah, Lina Gopaul, Avril Johnson, Reece Auguiste, Trevor Mathison, Edward George ...

, was a response to the social unrest in

Britain Britain most often refers to: * Great Britain, a large island comprising the countries of England, Scotland and Wales * The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, a sovereign state in Europe comprising Great Britain and the north-eas ...

in the 1980s: "Influenced by contemporary debate on post-colonialism and social theorists such as Homi Bhabha and Stuart Hall, both groups centered around investigations of black identity/culture within the British experience and reworked the documentary to articulate new voices in British cinema." Sankofa's first film, and Isaac Julien's directorial debut in 1983, was ''Who Killed Colin Roach?'' - a reflection on the death of a young black man in suspicious circumstances at the entrance of an east London police station.

Selected filmography

* ''Who Killed Colin Roach?'' (dir. Isaac Julien, 1983) * ''Territories'' (dir. Isaac Julien, 1984) * ''Passion of Remembrance'' (dir. Maureen Blackwood, Isaac Julien, 1986) * ''Dreaming Rivers'' (dir. Martina Attille, 1988) * ''

Looking For Langston ''Looking for Langston'' is a 1989 British black-and-white film, directed by Isaac Julien and produced by Sankofa Film & Video Productions. It combines authentic archival newsreel footage of Harlem in the 1920s with scripted scenes to produce a ...

'' (dir. Isaac Julien, 1989) * ''A Family Called Abrew'' (dir. Maureen Blackwood, 1992) * ''Inbetween'' (dir. Robert Crusz, 1992)

References

External links

"Sankofa Film and Video Collective" page
aavad.com Black British artists English artist groups and collectives Film collectives Organizations established in 1983 {{film-org-stub

Background

Selected filmography

See also

References

Further reading

External links