Amma Asante Biography

Amma Asante (born 1969) is a British writer and film director.

As a child, Asante attended the Barbara Speake stage school in Acton, London, where she trained as a pupil in dance and drama. 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 and was one of nine Grange Hill children 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 Brothers and Sisters followed, which Amma wrote and produced for her production company and BBC2.

Asante's 2004 feature film, A Way of Life, was her directorial debut.

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. February 2005 saw Amma collect the award for The Times Breakthrough 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 BAFTA Carl Foreman Award for Special Achievement by a Writer/Director in a debut film.

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 and the FIPRESCI prize (International Federation of Film Critics prize) for Best Feature Film.

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 this year, including the awards for Best Director and Best Film for Asante. And more recently, the film won the Grand Jury prize for Best Feature Film at the 2005 Britspotting festival in Berlin.

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

After a spell as a BAFTA Committee Member, she developed numerous script ideas and is currently in post-production on her second feature film, Belle (2013). 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. Produced by Bafta-winner Damian Jones (The Iron Lady), the film stars Academy Award nominees Tom Wilkinson, Emily Watson and Miranda Richardson alongside rising stars Sarah Gadon, Tom Felton, Sam Reid and Gugu Mbatha-Raw as the eponymous Dido.

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. The film is due for release on 8 September 2013.