Amma Asante

Amma Asante is a British-based writer and film director.

She attended full time stage school in London, where she trained as a student 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", and was one of nine "Grange Hill" kids to take the "Just Say No" campaign of the 1980s to the Reagan White House. She went on to gain credits in other popular 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, Amma left the world of acting behind and eventually 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.

Amma Asante's critically acclaimed feature film, "A Way of Life", was her directorial debut. The Times has heralded her "one of the most exciting prospects to have emerged in British Cinema".Fact|date=January 2008

In November 2004 The London Film Festival awarded Amma 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.

Amma was honoured a month later at the BAFTA Film Awards when she was presented with 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 both the Grand Jury prize for Best Feature Film 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 Amma. And more recently, the film won the Grand Jury prize for Best Feature Film at the 2005 Britspotting festival in Berlin.

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

External links

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0365914/ A Way of Life] at the IMDb