b. 1957

One of the founders of the influential Black Audio Film Collective, John Akomfrah has built a body of work both within the collective, and from his own production company, Smoking Dog films. Working primarily - though not exclusively - within documentary, the seminal Handsworth Songs remains his best-known work. Born in Ghana and educated in London and Portsmouth, his films engage with identity, history and the Black British experience.

Akomfrah is also a writer and critic, and is a governor of the British Film Institute and Film London.

From BFI website:

John Akomfrah is a film-maker who has won critical acclaim both in Britain and in the USA for his features and documentary work. In 1982 he helped found the Black Audio Film Collective, the seminal black film-making workshop, which for fifteen years produced a broad range of critically acclaimed work winning over thirty-five international awards. John came to prominence in 1986 when he directed Handsworth Songs, which explores the contours of race and civil disorder in 1980s Britain. The film won seven international awards including the Grierson Award for Best Documentary.

John has lectured throughout the world on black British cinema in a range of institutions including: the California Institute of Arts; the Art College of Chicago; the Tisch School of Art, New York; The London Institute; and the Universities of London and Ulster. He has also written extensively on film theory and aesthetics, is a member of the PACT Cultural Diversity Panel and sits on the Advisory Committee of the Sheffield International Documentary Festival.