Testament

by John Akomfrah

1988 Selection

GREAT BRITAIN 1988 1h30

Feature Film

In 1966, a Pan-Africanist leaves her homeland. As a member of the CPP (Convention Peoples Party) she had been part of a movement which turned Ghana into black Africa's first post-colonial country. A convergence of tragedies threatens both Ghana's future and her own. She leaves, vowing never to return. After twenty years, she returns to make a documentary feature on Ghanaian history. Her arrival in Ghana re-opens a repressed dialogue with the past ; a dialogue which transforms her life into a "war-zone of memories". A private war in which longing and regret are the main protagonists. Her role as television presenter becomes steadily enveloped in a labyrinthine meditation on dispossession and mortality. Testament is a tale of returns ; to days of mourning and nights of betrayal. A return to the last days of exile.