Amma Asante

On television, she directed two episodes of season 3 of The Handmaid's Tale in 2019, and is co-creator, writer, and director of the internationally co-produced TV crime drama series Smilla's Sense of Snow, premiering on Australian television on 30 July 2025.

• Name — Amma Asante • Honorific Suffix — MBE • Birthplace — Lambeth, London, England • Occupation — * Screenwriter • film director • actress • Education — Barbara Speake Stage School • Years Active — 1986–present • Spouse — Søren Pedersen • Notable Works — * A Way of Life (2004) • Belle (2013) • A United Kingdom (2016) • Website — www.ammaasante.com

Amma Asante was born in Lambeth, London, to Ghanaian parents: her mother was an entrepreneur who owned her own African cosmetics and grocery shop, and her accountant father received qualifications to work in the United Kingdom. She was a childhood friend of model Naomi Campbell, whom she met when they were seven years old. Asante attended the Barbara Speake Stage School in Acton, where she trained in dance and drama. The school gave her the opportunity of drafting her first sitcom script.

Asante became a child actress and made her first appearances on television in Grange Hill and Desmond's.

In her late teens, Asante left acting and worked in screenwriting with a development deal from Chrysalis. She founded a production company, Tantrum Films, where she wrote and produced two series of the BBC Two drama Brothers and Sisters (1998). Asante has since developed film projects in both the UK and US. Asante used Tantrum Films to make her directorial debut with a feature film, A Way of Life (2004). It was developed and financed through the UK Film Council and was produced by Peter Edwards, Patrick Cassavetti and Golden Globe Award and BAFTA Award winner Charlie Hanson. A Way of Life focused on the life of a single mother, played by Stephanie James. It details the reality of a woman who recounts the suicidal death of her mother and the presence of foster care. It also introduces her brother Gavin, played by Nathan Jones, who was also taken into foster care. As a young 17-year-old, Leigh Anne (Stephanie James) finds it difficult to get by, especially due to the medical expenses that her daughter Eli Williams incurred. The film also touches on the theme of cultural conflict, involving their neighbour Hassan Osman (played by Oliver Haden), who had been the victim of a beating, after being accused of reporting Leigh Anne to social services for child neglect. The film has been described as "one of the most warmly received UK titles in the London Film Festival in the autumn and a harrowing drama in social realist mode". On 17 January 2005, The Times said of Asante: "She is one of the most exciting prospects in British cinema to emerge in the past 12 months." Her second feature film, Belle (2013), is an historical romance. The film is based on Dido Elizabeth Belle, and depicts an illegitimate mixed-race daughter of an enslaved African woman and a Royal Navy captain. He placed the girl into the care of his uncle (and Belle's great-uncle) Lord Mansfield and his wife in late 18th-century London. In this film, Dido was being raised by a white aristocratic family and acquired many intellectual skills. She uses her personal experiences to debate the social and structural issues of her time, such as gender roles and abolitionism. Dido's role in the film has been said to be "a way that is usually denied to historical black women". The film stars Gugu Mbatha-Raw as the eponymous lead character, Dido Belle, Tom Wilkinson as Lord Mansfield, who as a justice, ruled on two important cases related to slavery; Emily Watson as his wife and Miranda Richardson, Sarah Gadon, Tom Felton, and Sam Reid. Belle was 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 was shot on location in the Isle of Man, London and Oxford. It was distributed through Fox Searchlight Pictures. A special screening of Belle, attended by Asante and Gugu Mbatha-Raw, took place 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. In January 2014, it was announced that Asante would direct a thriller, Unforgettable, for Warner Bros. but she eventually left the project, announcing in March 2015 that she would instead be directing A United Kingdom, a period piece based on the interracial romance between the first president of Botswana, Seretse Khama, and his wife Ruth Williams. The film A United Kingdom, which Asante directed in 2016, features David Oyelowo and Rosamund Pike portraying the main protagonists of the real-life story, who marry, and with the coming independence of Bechuanaland, decide to move back there, despite British opposition to their relationship. A United Kingdom is based on the 2006 book by historian Susan Williams entitled Colour Bar: The Triumph of Seretse Khama and His Nation. Brunson Green details the filming process by explaining that "you could tell there were about 250 movie moments in this biography of this amazing couple, and so we kind of culled through all those moments and tried to figure out a storyline". During the IFP Gotham Independent Film Awards ceremony, Oyelowo mentions adding A United Kingdom to his list of movies because it was an African-based story directed by a female filmmaker. A United Kingdom opened the British Film Institute's 60th London Film Festival in 2016. Asante directed "Useful", episode 3 in series 3 of Hulu streaming service's series The Handmaid's Tale. The series is based on Canadian writer Margaret Atwood's 1985 novel of the same name. The episode first screened on 5 June 2019. Asante is set to direct a film adaptation of the book The Billion Dollar Spy, starring Mads Mikkelsen. Since around 2020, Asante has been involved in creating, writing, and directing the six-part internationally co-produced TV crime drama series Smilla's Sense of Snow, which has its world premiere on Australian TV network SBS Television on 30 July 2025 and is distributed by ITV Studios. The series was made by German film production studio Constantin Film, in association with others.

As of 2025 Asante is chancellor of the Norwich University of the Arts, since becoming the second in the role in 2019, after John Hurt. Asante is a contributor to the 2019 anthology New Daughters of Africa, edited by Margaret Busby. She is a past elected member of BAFTA Council and a past BAFTA Film committee member. When she was in Grange Hill, she travelled to US for an anti-drugs campaign, and then met First Lady Nancy Reagan.

Asante was previously married to producer Charlie Hanson. She then married Søren Pedersen, former spokesman for European police in The Hague. As of October 2024 she lives in Denmark.

• Year — Title — Notes — Director — Writer • 2019 — The Handmaid's Tale — Episodes "Useful" and "God Bless the Child" • 2020 — Mrs. America — Episodes "Shirley" and "Betty" • 2025 — Smilla's Sense of Snow — 6 episodes; creator, writer, director