A young man plays a pickup game of basketball with a man who appears to be a runaway slave.

Director’s Vision for ‘Rebound’

I wanted to make a short film that explored black masculinity and generational trauma. When writing the script, a lot of the thematics took after the Ghanan proverb, “Sankofa w’onkyir”, which translates as: “It is not wrong to go back for that which you have forgotten.” In recent years, the discourse on slavery and black victimization in media has been met with apathy from some of my friends. As a black man myself, I understand their frustration but I can’t help but sense a tinge of willful ignorance. So I set out to tell a story about the moderate confronting the extreme. All this to pose a question to the audience: When are we supposed to let go of the horrors of the past?