Tell us a little about yourself…
My name is Kwesi Awotwi, I am an Visual Artist and Filmmaker born and bred in Hackney, East London. I graduated from a Canterbury Christ Church University with a BA Hons in Film, Television, Radio and Animation, followed by a studying of practical filmmaking at London Met Film School, Ealing, West London. In addition, I studied fine art for six years with London Fine Arts Studios before returning to picking up a camera.
I am known for my debut short film “Tree of Roots” which was selected for the “Aesthetica Film Festival” in 2021, before attending Met Film School followed debut by my next project “A Passions Night Bloom”. Since graduation from film school, my aim as a director is about telling stories from an artistic disposition. I express in my work through art and storytelling, my personal experiences and opinions of what it means to be Black British from a Ghanaian heritage.
What inspired you to become a filmmaker, and how has your heritage influenced your work?
Originally, I wanted to be an animator, my goal before working in live action was to make animated films as I always enjoyed watching cartoons and television shows from an early age. This sparked my creativity and inspired me to start drawing my own cartoon characters in my sketchbook, a gift from my parents who encouraged my brother and I to be creative and write short stories during our childhood.
During my teens right up to university I was a huge fan of anime. I watched a variety of anime films and programmes during my spare time and became obsessed with animation. I tried to learn online and through books on how improve my drawings and wrote my own comic book ideas. Thus, my Film, Television and Radio, Bachelor of Arts Degree specialised in Animation.
During that period of studies, I was able to explore my deep interest in animation and live action filmmaking and knew and enjoyed both mediums of creativity, but I wasn’t sure which direction to take. As a result, I studied both to see which made me tick. Thus, my focus shifted fully to animation, because I preferred to work on my own as in animation you can choose to work solo, making your own films if one is prepared to draw twenty-four frames per second solo or you can work with a team. At the time I didn’t understand the concept of sharing your idea and collaborating with a team to get one’s vision across which is what is done mostly as a director which I had not explored yet. However, I like the flexibility of animation as an art form and another approach to filmmaking I sometimes apply my animation method to my auteur filmmaking.
My mind was made up after university that animation was a career for me and pursued that path. My goal at the time was to work for animation studios in house – gain experience and create my own work as well. I had the opportunity to do work placement at Nexus Studios in London. This gave me industry exposure, and I was able to shadow and observe 2D/3D artists and directors working on commercials for their clients. It was very interesting. I observed directors who also worked in animation and mixed media, working in or combing live action and VFX/animation.
After finishing my placement, I started learning computer graphics and attended Fine Art School when I did not get into an animation master’s degree course that year. I had the opportunity to work at the British Film Institute (BFI) during the film festival period for couple years. This waked up my other interest for live action filmmaking after experiencing multiple film screenings and Q&As during the film festival. I got really inspired, brainstormed ideas for making my own films, realising that some of my ideas worked for animation and others fitted with live action. I started writing and taking evening screenwriting classes. I wrote a few screenplays on the course. It was around 2021 when I left Art School, wrapped up on my writing course and was excited to do something with all that knowledge and experience – then suddenly there was a pandemic called Covid to pause my excitement.
Sadly, during that time my maternal Grandpa passed away peacefully, and I had to travel with my family to Ghana for his funeral. It was during this very difficult period ( I was close with my maternal Grandfather and had visited him many times) in my life I made my first short film “Tree of Roots” – a documentary about myself rediscovering my Roots as an artist exploring my culture and identity back in the motherland.
After making the film I set up Groundhog Pictures Limited and now have an addition Midnight Fox Comics. I had to attend Met Film School to relearn film making before making my current short film “A Passion’s Night Bloom” From that point forward I made a conscious decision to direct and produce my own ideas across live action and animated form through my brand in indie cinema – to express myself through my experience as a Black British and Ghanaian filmmaker.
What challenges have you faced as a filmmaker of African origin, and how did you overcome them?
I have faced challenges mostly in navigating the film industry, primarily as an emerging indie filmmaker. I have learnt a lot but also made some mistakes which I call challenges and learning curves in this industry. As an emerging filmmaker one mostly pursues my own passion projects which is both exciting but can be challenging. I am actively applying and seeking funding or private investors to back my projects, but this has been tricky particularly finding the right people who believe in my vision.
For my first two short films I made the decision to self-fund – financially very expensive but very rewarding and proud moments for me – seeing my films selected for various film festivals’ screenings and receiving merit and positive comments from the audience. That has been awesome! However, it then also has its challenges – for me it’s about what is next, how can I push my career even further? Am I closer to making a long form project yet? Will my next film get recognised in the industry with an award? Will my next film get into recognised film festivals? Should I crowdfund or self-fund again? I need to increase my production value and improve on previous learning curves, etc. etc. So many questions which can be challenging.
Sometimes as a filmmaker of African origin I question if the global audience will embrace and connect with my films from the perspective that I envisage – my aim as a filmmaker is to tell universal stories but from my own personal experience and being true to myself as an artist. I must acknowledge potentially not everyone will connect with my films compared to blockbusters which are made for the mass audiences’ appeal. This can be challenging sometimes putting your work out in the open in front of others to make their own opinion of what they think of my work. This goes for many filmmakers and artists.
What advice would you give to aspiring African filmmakers aiming to share their stories on a global stage?
My advice to aspiring African filmmakers aiming to share their stories is just to go for it. If you have an idea you’re dying to share and feel film is the right art form to share to express that story, just go for it.
I think we are all naturally story tellers and it’s important to continue to share stories because it is one of the driving forces which shapes our world. It’s also important for African filmmakers to keep telling stories about our culture and community. The more the merry to push African and Black cinema further.
Thank you
