Erweiterte Suche

A self-absorbed Black American fashion model on a photo shoot in Africa is spiritually transported back to a plantation in the West Indies where she experiences first-hand the physical and psychic horrors of chattel slavery, and eventually the redemptive power of community and rebellion as she becomes a member of a freedom-seeking Maroon colony.

The Ethiopian intellectual Anberber returns to his native country during the repressive totalitarian regime of Haile Mariam Mengistu and the recognition of his own displacement and powerlessness at the dissolution of his people's humanity and social values. After several years spent studying medicine in Germany, he finds the country of his youth replaced by turmoil. His dream of using his craft to improve the health of Ethiopians is squashed by a military junta that uses scientists for its own political ends. Seeking the comfort of his countryside home, Anberber finds no refuge from violence. The solace that the memories of his youth provide is quickly replaced by the competing forces of military and rebelling factions. Anberber needs to decide whether he wants to bear the strain or piece together a life from the fragments that lie around him.

In the 1950s, African Americans from all walks of life followed Kwame Nkrumah's call to come home to live and work in Africa. It was a call to not only help rebuild the independent country of Ghana, but to also join in the creation of a liberated Pan-African territory. On the day that Ghana's independence was proclaimed, Nkrumah, who became Ghana's first president, stated that Ghana's independence was meaningless unless it was linked to the liberation of the whole of Africa. Intertwining the struggles of the Diaspora and Africa, Footprints of Pan-Africanism honors the powerful bonds that were so crucial to this era. While one country was struggling for equity and the other for independence, both movements were rooted in a determination to reassert their humanity and recover from the impact of slavery and colonialism.