King Ampaw

Background

King Ampaw was born on the 25th of July 1940 in Kukurantumi in the Eastern Region of Ghana.

Education

He attended the Academy of Film in Potsdam, Germany in 1965. In 1966 he also enrolled at the Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, Austria and the Academy of Television and Film at the Munich University, Germany from 1967 to 1972 where he studied with Werner Herzog and Wim Wenders. He graduated as a film director with his first film They Call it Love.

Career

He is known for starring as the second lead role with the late Hollywood actor, Klaus Kinski in Werner Herzog’s sensational film Cobra Verde (1987) which he also co-produced. He also co-produced the film African Timber (1989) directed by Peter F. Bringmann. On his return to Ghana, he became a senior director at the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) from 1979 to 1982 when he left GBC to form his own film company, Afro movies Limited.

King Ampaw wrote, directed and produced his own films such as, Juju (1985) and

Most of his films have been co-funded with his company Afromovies Limited and international agencies and governments such as Number Time to Die which was funded by the European Union and the French Government. He was the first Filmmaker to be given an Honorary Award at the African Movie Academy Awards (AMAA) in Nigeria.

At the 2012 NAFTI Film Lectures, he was honoured for his immense contribution to the film industry and cross-cultural collaborations between Ghana and Germany. King Ampaw is currently working on a film titled The Son and Sun of Africa, which is about the life of the legendary Pan-Africanist, Kwame Nkrumah which will be his last film to complete his creative works.

Achievements

• His films have been praised internationally and have won numerous awards including the Film Critics Award for Kukurantumi, Road to Accra at FESPACO, the Input Film Award for Juju in Czechoslovakian Republic and Talifa Film Festival Award in Spain for Number Time to Die. He also received another Lifetime Achievement Award in 2013 at the Accra International Film Festival.

Membership

He is a founding member of FEPACI (African Filmmakers’ Union), FESPACO, the Ghana Academy of Film and Television Arts (GAFTA) and the Directors’ Guild of Ghana (Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft).