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John Akomfrah
Sir John Akomfrah CBE RA (born 4 May 1957) is a Ghanaian-born British artist, writer, film director, screenwriter, theorist and curator of Ghanaian descent, whose "commitment to a radicalism both of politics and of cinematic form finds expression in all his films".
A founder of the Black Audio Film Collective in 1982, he made his début as a director with Handsworth Songs (1986), which examined the fallout from the 1985 Handsworth riots. Handsworth Songs went on to win the Grierson Award for Best Documentary in 1987.
With Lina Gopaul and David Lawson, his long-term producing partners, Akomfrah co-founded Smoking Dogs Films in 1998.
In the words of The Guardian, he "has secured a reputation as one of the UK's most pioneering film-makers [whose] poetic works have grappled with race, identity and post-colonial attitudes for over three decades." In the 2023 New Year Honours, he was the recipient of a knighthood in recognition of his services to the Arts.
Akomfrah was chosen to represent Britain at the Venice Biennale in 2024.
John Akomfrah was born in Accra, Dominion of Ghana, to parents who were involved with anti-colonial activism. In an interview with Sukhdev Sandhu, Akomfrah said: "My dad was a member of the cabinet of Kwame Nkrumah's party.... We left Ghana because my mum's life was in danger after the coup of 1966, and my father died in part because of the struggle that led up to the coup." This struggle goes in ties with the imbalance of his identity that he expresses in his "Conversations with Noise" that was part of the Five Murmurations (2021). Akomfrah was educated in British schools since around the age of eight. His excellence as a student led him to showcase this struggle with this imbalance between Britain's colonization and his identity.
He was an influential creator in 1982, founding the Black Audio Film Collective, which was discontinued in 1998. In this organization, he and others focused on the backlash the Black community in Britain received and the mental toll of their identities being affected. In his films, Akomfrah experimented with sound to display the struggles the Black community in Britain face.
In 1998, together with Lina Gopaul and David Lawson, his long-term producing partners, Akomfrah founded Smoking Dogs Films.
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John Akomfrah
Sir John Akomfrah CBE RA (born 4 May 1957) is a Ghanaian-born British artist, writer, film director, screenwriter, theorist and curator of Ghanaian descent, whose "commitment to a radicalism both of politics and of cinematic form finds expression in all his films".
A founder of the Black Audio Film Collective in 1982, he made his début as a director with Handsworth Songs (1986), which examined the fallout from the 1985 Handsworth riots. Handsworth Songs went on to win the Grierson Award for Best Documentary in 1987.
With Lina Gopaul and David Lawson, his long-term producing partners, Akomfrah co-founded Smoking Dogs Films in 1998.
In the words of The Guardian, he "has secured a reputation as one of the UK's most pioneering film-makers [whose] poetic works have grappled with race, identity and post-colonial attitudes for over three decades." In the 2023 New Year Honours, he was the recipient of a knighthood in recognition of his services to the Arts.
Akomfrah was chosen to represent Britain at the Venice Biennale in 2024.
John Akomfrah was born in Accra, Dominion of Ghana, to parents who were involved with anti-colonial activism. In an interview with Sukhdev Sandhu, Akomfrah said: "My dad was a member of the cabinet of Kwame Nkrumah's party.... We left Ghana because my mum's life was in danger after the coup of 1966, and my father died in part because of the struggle that led up to the coup." This struggle goes in ties with the imbalance of his identity that he expresses in his "Conversations with Noise" that was part of the Five Murmurations (2021). Akomfrah was educated in British schools since around the age of eight. His excellence as a student led him to showcase this struggle with this imbalance between Britain's colonization and his identity.
He was an influential creator in 1982, founding the Black Audio Film Collective, which was discontinued in 1998. In this organization, he and others focused on the backlash the Black community in Britain received and the mental toll of their identities being affected. In his films, Akomfrah experimented with sound to display the struggles the Black community in Britain face.
In 1998, together with Lina Gopaul and David Lawson, his long-term producing partners, Akomfrah founded Smoking Dogs Films.