Familiar Faces/Unexpected Places: A Global African Diaspora

Tens of millions of Africans were scattered throughout the world during the centuries of the notorious process of enslavement. The African Diasporan communities that resulted contributed to the building of the new societies of the Americas and added new presences to old societies elsewhere. Torn from the world they knew, Africans and their descendants preserved ancestral worldviews to which they adapted the cultures of others to create dynamic fusions that continue to enrich global civilization. The documentary offers an expansive vision of what, where and who the African Diaspora is, highlights African knowledge and technologies that developed the Americas, and reveals similarities between African Diasporan communities in distant lands. Some of these communities are known, but their contributions to their nations and regions are not. The existence of others and their cultural commonalities - in the Americas, Indian Ocean and South Asia - comes as a surprise. (Pan African Film Festival)