BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY : AFRO-BRITISH " AMMA ASANTE " IS A BRITISH WRITER AND FILM DIRECTOR : UP AND COMING TOP CLASS FILM DIRECTOR : GOES INTO THE " HALL OF BLACK GENIUS "

                   BLACK              SOCIAL              HISTORY                                                                                                                                                                                                        Amma Asante (born 1969) is a British writer and film director.^[1][2][3][4]

Early life

Asante was born in London in 1969, to Ghanaian immigrant parents; an accountant father and a mother who did housecleaning and ran the family-owned African deli.^[5] As a child, Asante attended the Barbara Speake stage school in Acton, London, where she trained as a pupil in dance and drama.^[6] She began her film and television career as a child actress, appearing as a regular in the British school drama Grange Hill. She was in the vanguard of the "Just Say No" campaign of the 1980s^[7] and was one of nine Grange Hillchildren to take it to the Reagan White House. She went on to gain credits in other British television series including Desmond's (Channel 4) and Birds Of A Feather (BBC1), and was a Children's Channel presenter for a year.

In her late teens, Asante left acting and made the move to screenwriting with a development deal from Chrysalis. Two series of the urban drama  followed, which Amma wrote and produced for her production company and BBC2.^[8]

Writing and directing career

Produced through her production company Tantrum Films, Asante's 2004 feature film, A Way of Life, was her directorial debut,^[6] It was developed and financed through the UK Film Council and produced by Peter Edwards,  and Golden Globe Award and BAFTA Award winner, Charlie Hanson. On Jan 17th 2005, The Times said of Asante, "She is one of the most exciting prospects in British cinema to emerge in the past 12 months",^[9]

In November 2004 The London Film Festival awarded Asante the inaugural Alfred Dunhill UK Film Talent Award, created to recognise the achievements of a new or emerging British writer/director who has shown great skill and imagination in bringing originality and verve to film-making.^[10] February 2005 saw Amma collect the award for The TimesBreakthrough Artist of the Year at The South Bank Show Awards and nominations for Best Newcomer at both the Evening Standard and London Film Critics Awards.

At the BAFTA Film Awards in February 2005 Asante received the Carl Foreman Award for Special Achievement by a Writer/Director in a debut film.^[11]

On the same night, she scored a double triumph at the 2005 Miami International Film Festival, winning the award for Best Dramatic Feature in World Cinema^[12] and the FIPRESCIprize (International Federation of Film Critics prize) for Best Feature Film.^{[13][14][15][16]}

The Wales Chapter of BAFTA which honours excellence in film and television arts, presented A Way Of Life with four of its top awards in April 2005, including the awards for Best Director and Best Film for Asante.^[17][18][19]

Additionally, Asante has been awarded at San Sebastian Film Festival in Spain^[19] and The Mar del Plata Film Festival in Argentina.

Asante is a past elected member of BAFTA Council and a past BAFTA Film committee member. She is an Honorary Associate of the London Film School^[20] and a past Governor of the school (2006–2007). Asante continues to work as a writer and director and has developed several film projects in both the UK and US. Her second feature film, Belle (2013), was distributed through Fox Searchlight Pictures.^[21] Based on the true story behind the seminal 1779 painting of Dido Elizabeth Belle, the story follows the eponymous character’s conflicted life as a mixed-race girl raised in nobility in 18th century England.^[22][23] The film stars Academy Award nominees Tom Wilkinson, Emily Watson and Miranda Richardsonalongside rising stars Sarah Gadon, Tom Felton, Sam Reid and Gugu Mbatha-Raw as the eponymous Dido.

On 19 September 2013, The Daily Mail reported that Asante was denied writing credit on the film, due to a WGA arbitration.^[23]

Shot on location in the Isle of Man, London and Oxford, Belle is the third project to receive investment from Pinewood Studios as part of its Pinewood Films initiative, established to help fund and support British independent films.^[24][25]

On the closing night of the 2014 Miami International Film Festival, Asante was awarded The Signis Award for her work on Belle.^[26]

A special screening of the film was held at the United Nations headquarters in New York on 2 April 2014 as part of the UN commemorative events on slavery and the transatlantic slave trade. Asante and star Gugu Mbatha-Raw were in attendance ^[27]

The same week Asante was honored by BAFTA in both Los Angeles and New York as a Brit To Watch as Asante attended special screenings of Belle held to celebrate her work on the film.^[28]

In January 2014 it was announced that Asante would direct Unforgettable for Warner Bros.^[29]