Sky's Possession Series Confronts Jamaica's Slavery Past On Screen

A woman opens a box that has sat closed for 300 years, and a violent spirit tied to colonialism and enslavement comes roaring back, according to The Guardian, which reported on Oct. 16, 2026 that the scene anchors Sky's new supernatural series Possession and signals a wider shift in what Jamaican film is willing to show.

What is Sky's Possession about?

Possession follows a biracial British lawyer, played by Gugu Mbatha-Raw, who travels from Bristol to Jamaica to resolve a multimillion-pound inheritance dispute, the Guardian reported. The case pulls her into the history of a former slave plantation, where she uncovers a vengeful spirit bound to the property's colonial past, according to the same report. The production is credited to Jamaican director Storm Saulter, who the Guardian said was focused on making sure the trauma and lasting legacy of enslavement and colonization carried real weight in the script rather than functioning as backdrop.

How does the series confront Jamaica's slavery history?

The 300-year-old box at the center of the plot is described in the Guardian's account as a device for literalizing what the outlet calls "the spirit of colonialism and oppression" — a plot mechanism that ties a present-day inheritance claim directly to the brutality of plantation-era slavery. That structure, inheritance law colliding with buried colonial violence, lets the series move between a British legal drama and a Jamaican ghost story in the same narrative, per the Guardian's description of the plot.

Why do scholars call this "cultural reparation"?

Dr. Lisa Tomlinson, a lecturer in film studies at the University of the West Indies, told the Guardian that the thematic range of Jamaican film has shifted toward material that was once avoided. "They're now very much connected and reflective of Jamaican stories — stories that were previously taboo or avoided," Tomlinson said, according to the Guardian.

Tomlinson said Jamaican films do not need to be explicitly about reparations to engage with the legacy of enslavement; many do so through cultural memory and African-derived spiritual traditions woven into their storytelling, the Guardian reported.

"Reparation is not just a political act," Tomlinson told the Guardian. "It's also culture. These African-derived spiritualities, the historical knowledge — when they come through creative expression, what they do is give us authority to tell our own stories."

Tomlinson's framing, cultural reparation as distinct from but linked to political reparations, arrives as Caribbean governments press their own case. The Guardian reported that Caribbean countries are increasingly arguing centuries of enslavement left the region at a lasting economic disadvantage, a position fueling renewed calls for reparations across the region.

How is Jamaica's wider film industry changing?

The Guardian frames Possession as one data point in a broader pattern: directors on the island are increasingly using Jamaican landscapes and settings to tell Jamaican stories rather than exporting locations for outside productions. The outlet's reporting ties that pattern to a generation of filmmakers, Saulter among them, treating enslavement, trauma and historical memory as central subject matter rather than material to route around.

The series itself is a cross-border production — a British network, a British lead actor, and a plot built on a British legal dispute — that nonetheless places a Jamaican director and Jamaican history at its narrative core, according to the Guardian's account. That combination is part of what Tomlinson points to when she describes the shift as a reclaiming of narrative authority rather than a purely domestic film movement.

What should viewers watch for next?

• Whether Possession's box-opening sequence becomes a reference point other productions use to dramatize colonial-era trauma, per the framing in the Guardian's report.
• Whether academics such as Tomlinson continue to apply the "cultural reparation" label to future Jamaican film and television releases.
• Whether Caribbean governments' reparations arguments, as described by the Guardian, gain traction alongside — or independent of — this cultural turn in film.
• Whether director Storm Saulter's approach on Possession shapes how other Jamaican directors handle plantation-era settings going forward.

The Guardian's reporting does not include box-office or viewership figures for Possession, and no such numbers are cited in this account.