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Zavobe Oyen'ike (The Wise Womb Deserves Honor and Care)

“Zavobe Oyen’ike” (The Wise Womb Deserves Honor and Care), is an affirmative documentary story of the largely unseen work of Black wombed healers within southern social Justice movement building.

The documentary highlights several healers both in Atlanta and throughout the US who are using their gifts to support the healing of the diaspora and the Earth in this pivotal moment. It spans the time period of Rayshard Brooks’ murder, COVID pandemic, and the Stop Cop City movement. The film invites the audience beyond the veil of the public eye into the ceremonies, inner circle supports, costs, lessons and joys of being a movement healer in this time.

It highlights the ways in which vastly diverse African descended medicine folx work alongside each other and other indigenous leaders towards Liberatory practices and care using the ancestral power of the African descended womb. This is an exciting and heartfelt journey into the stories of some of the most prominent healing figures in the diasporic landscape and provides journeys into their archives and medicine making practices.

The film also provides a clear and resounding call for descendants of enslavers and colonial settlers to redistribute their wealth and resources into the hands of Black wombed healers who are doing reparative care in ways that provide ceremonial and ritual balance to the energies of enslavement. We are excited to share this culminating offering of the work of so many in service to the healing of the people and the land. Asé.

This work is an embodied example of the work highlighted in the following work by the film's director:
Robinson-Myers, Karli Sherita, "Sankofa Healing: A Womanist Analysis of the Retrieval and Transformation of African Ritual Dance." Thesis, Georgia State University, 2015.

doi: https://doi.org/10.57709/7021647

  • Neith S. Sankofa
    Director
  • Neith S. Sankofa
    Producer
  • Sonia Matthews
    Editor
    Monday Night Martini. Crushed Velvet Films
  • Wyoma
    Key Cast
  • Chief Ejanla Omilana
    Key Cast
  • Chief Abiye Ayele Kumari
    Key Cast
  • Amisha Harding
    Key Cast
  • Mattice Haynes
    Key Cast
  • Jen Willsea
    Key Cast
  • Ekua Adisa
    Key Cast
  • Neith Sankofa
    Key Cast
  • Leah Clements
    Key Cast
  • Eva Dickerson
    Key Cast
  • Keyanna Jones-Moore
    Key Cast
  • Regina Sewell
    Key Cast
  • Yeye Alaragbo Oodua
    Key Cast
  • Project Type:
    Documentary
  • Genres:
    spirituality, activism, reparations, spiritual activism, healer, black women, black womb
  • Runtime:
    1 hour 35 minutes 25 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    March 4, 2025
  • Production Budget:
    55,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States, United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States, United States
  • Shooting Format:
    XAVAC S 4k
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    No
  • The American Academy of Religion
    Boston
    United States
    November 22, 2025
    Selected for Screening at the Annual Conference
Director Biography - Neith S. Sankofa

Neith Sankofa is a Healing Artist, producer, and medicine woman in the lineage of the Divine Feminine with covenants to protect and uplift African descended women and wombed healers especially diasporants with ancestry in the American South. Her offerings spring from the traditions of African Healing Dance, ceremonial theatrical performance, art, music, ancestral retrieval, and storytelling through film and oral history. She is the CEO of Neith Sankofa Consulting- A Healing Culture Company, and Creative Director of The Healing Theater ceremonies. Neith believes that the presence, peace, and collective work of Black womxn healers is vital to the human community, for as they are restored, their medicines can be shared for collective healing.

Neith is an ordained minister, womanist, and former U.S. Marine with a Masters of Arts in Religious Studies (concentrations in ethics, the sociology of religion, and embodiment). She has studied extensively with several world renowned healers and conducts all of her work, without apology, under the direction of Black, and indigenous Shamanic and African Religious elders in the traditions of her Righteous Ancestors.
She is the immensely proud Mama of 4 amazing humans and is passionate about co-creating a world in which they can authenticity thrive with full knowledge and expression of their Divine gifts and in harmony with their sacred Ancestral traditions.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

I've spent the last 15 years of my life as a spiritualist, ceremonialist and activist. After suffering a nervous breakdown, I decided to quit my high paying corporate job, get sober and return to school.

I could never have imagined that this series of events would lead me to a powerful line of African descended women who would mentor me into the world of healing activism. A world that also brought me some of the most profound wisdom elders, friends and comrades along the way. Each one unique in both their gifts and their unique interpretations of the ancestral power they possessed.

This film is a continuation of the work that I wrote about in my thesis which uplifted the work of luminaries like Madam Priestess Katherine Dunham and my personal mentor Wyoma (also included in the film).

It brings the ineffable into the visible as the 13 healing activists involved share their hopes, struggles, love for one another and testimonials to the resources and restoration that is required for African descended wombed healers to continue the vital work of communal and social care in this time.

I am so very proud of this work and affirm that the Zavobe (first mothers of humanity) will be returned to their places of honor and care (Oyen'ike).