This 43-minute documentary film combines ethnography with history and heritage to narrate the story of African movement eastwards through the Indian Ocean World and beyond to the Pacific Ocean. The film highlights African music as a vibrant legacy through the genres of manja, kaffrinha and baila in Sri Lanka. Ancient migrations less known than the transAtlantic African movement to the Americas are brought to the fore. Moreover, the achievements of some enslaved Africans in the East, albeit freed, within the sociocultural worlds that they entered into, are unparalleled in the Atlantic World.
The film will be of interest to those concerned with lost African diasporas globally. Film producer, Professor Shihan de Silva Jayasuriya, will be present at the event and there will an opportunity for Q&A and discussion after the screening.
Indian Ocean African Migrants Film Screening
with producer Professor Shihan de Silva Jayasuriya
Saturday, 11 April 2026, 1100-1215, free, no booking required
Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford
See: https://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/event/indian-ocean-african-migrants-film-screening
