Biography

Akosua Adoma Owusu is a filmmaker, producer, and educator. Her cinematic essays and experimental films address the collision of identities, where the African immigrant located in the United States has a "triple consciousness". Owusu’s work has been screened extensively at festivals and venues worldwide including the New York Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Locarno International Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, BFI London Film Festival, Ann Arbor Film Festival, BlackStar Film Festival, CCA Wattis Institute, Flaherty Seminar, Studio Museum in Harlem, Anthology Film Archives, MoMA, and African Film Festival, Inc. in New York. In 2015, she was named by IndieWire as one of the 6 pre-eminent “Avant-Garde Female Filmmakers Who Redefined Cinema”.

Owusu’s films have been covered by ARTFORUM, Freize, e-flux journal, Black Camera, Film Comment, and the International Review of African American American Art. Her film KWAKU ANANSE (2013) was well-received at Berlinale Shorts. It won the 2013 Africa Movie Academy Award and was selected for the 59th Venice Biennale. RELUCTANTLY QUEER (2016) was also selected for Berlinale Shorts and nominated for the Teddy Award. Her films have been streamed on PBS, The Criterion Channel, MUBI and is currently in distribution with Grasshopper Films. Her work is held in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, Centre Pompidou, and the Fowler Museum at UCLA among others. She has also received fellowships and grants from Film at Lincoln Center Award for Emerging Artists (2020), Villa Sträuli residency (2019), Goethe-Institut Salvador-Bahia (2018), Camargo Foundation fellowship (2016), Guggenheim Memorial Foundation fellowship (2015), MacDowell Colony fellowship (2013) and Creative Capital fellowship (2012). 

She earned her BA in Media Studies and Studio Art from the University of Virginia and an MFA in Film and Video and Fine Art from CalArts in 2008. In 2021-2022, Owusu held an appointment as the Robert Gardner Fellow at Harvard University in the Department of Art, Film and Visual Studies. She previously taught at Georgetown University, Northern Virginia Community College, Pratt Institute, National Film And Television Institute (NAFTI), and at the MFA Summer program at Bard College. Owusu served as a 2023 Arts Envoy for the U.S. Embassy in Ghana and has participated on juries and selection committees for numerous film organizations. She is currently an Assistant Professor in the Cathy Hughes School of Communications, Department of Media, Journalism, and Film at Howard University.