I met this week’s guest, Nana Asomani-Poku in Jamestown, Accra during a walking tour through featuring stories told in images by Glocal Citizen, James Barnor. It was during the James Barnor @‌95 celebration in 2024. Nana, a UK-born Ghanaian legal professional, filmmaker, and community engagement specialist based in Australia was back in Ghana for a family celebration of his own. As we chatted along the route, he mentioned his work centering social impact in Australia and my curiosity was peaked. What you’ll learn in this conversation spans how he began his career as a legal advocate for asylum seekers and refugees with the UK’s largest not-for-profit immigration law firm to community and stakeholder engagement, building bridges between public sector organisations and marginalised communities in Australia. Alongside his human rights work, he pursued his passion for filmmaking, training at the New York Film Academy and going on to make his first feature film, Drawn.

Let’s travel with Nana, to get to know more about his land down under and other stops across the globe.

Where to find Nana?
On IMDB
On Instagram

What’s Nana listening to?
Whitney Houston, Al Green, The Jacksons, to name a few.

Other topics of interest:
Visit Porkyto's in Osu, Accra
Correction about the Aquarius sun sign, an air sign not a water sign
About Leytonstone and The Bow Bells
Lifestyle in Perth vs Melbourne
Sokoto, Nigeria
Ombudsman Services in Australia
About the film, The Dish
Yoga Nidra + Sankalpa
How many countries are there across the planet?

Special Guest: Nana Asomani-Poku.

We’re picking up more momentum toward African progress sharing the stories of dynamic diasporans making impact in the reparatory justice space. On the eve of Africa Day, I attended the premier screening of Omitted, a short film exploring reparatory justice and the legacies of colonialism by Lavinya Stennett, founder of The Black Curriculum. Raised in the UK with Jamaican roots, she founded The Black Curriculum in 2019 at age 22 shortly after finishing her studies at London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) which included a study abroad program in New Zealand. Her learning and experience with indigenous communities in New Zealand joined with her activism as a student at SOAS are the framework for the craft of truthtelling that is at the core of The Black Curriculum.

Believing in the power of education, social impact and youth social entrepreneurship, her work has been recognised globally from Vogue and GQ to the historic Freedom of the City of London Award in 2024. She also has written on social and cultural themes throughout the African diaspora for outlets including the Guardian, Black Ballad, Quartz Africa.

Expanding her entrpreneurship journey, in 2024 Lavinya co-founded the Racial Impact Collective, an initiative supporting social entrepreneurs and seeking equity in the grant making world. The future is brighter with knowing that there is a generation fo social innovators with creative talents like Lavinya committed to justice for marginalized peoples.

Where to find Lavinya?
https://www.lavinyastennett.co.uk
TheBlackCurriculum.com
On LinkedIn
On Instagram
On Facebook
On YouTube

What’s Lavinya reading?
Material World by Ed Conway
Free: Coming of Age at the End of History by Lea Ypi

Other topics of interest:
Portland and Saint Thomas, Jamaica
Barbados and the Welcome Stamp Visa - Note: the capital is Bridgetown, not Christ Church
The SOAS Walter Rodney Prize
Dream New Scholarship
Univrsity of Waikato
About the Treaty of Waitangi and the latest on the [protest haka in the New Zealand’s Parliament seen around the globe](linkhttps://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/6/5/new-zealand-parliament-suspends-maori-mps-who-performed-protest-haka)
About Omitted production partner, Transmission
About Peace First

Special Guest: Lavinya Stennett.

As you listen to this week’s episode you may catch a hint of showers as part of the sound track for this conversation with long-time collaborator, Takoradi, Ghana’s own Francis Brown. As the saying goes, showers bring flowers and in this two-part conversation we’re definitely cultivating a bouquet of beauty and insights.
Francis is one of the first professionals that I worked with when I arrived in Ghana; at that times he was a student at Ghana’s National Film and Television Institute (NAFTI). Since then, his career has flourished as founder and creative director of AnimaxFYB Studios in Ghana. He is an award-winning filmmaker trained in a number of different cinematic mediums, and has over ten years experience in the audio-visual industry. He is a member of the International Academy of Arts and Sciences (EMMY), a Jury at MIPCOM in Cannes and a frequent speaker on different film and television forums around the world. He was shortlisted for the 42nd Student Academy Awards (Oscars), won Best Animation Film at the Africa International Film Festival 2016 (AFFRIF), Best Creative Artist 2017 at the Black British Entertainment Awards, animator of the year at the 2017 Ghana UK Based Awards (GUBA) and also Best Animation at the 2018 Ghana Movie Awards. In 2019, face2face Africa named him one of the five African animators who can give their Hollywood counterparts a run for the money. In 2021, his short 3D animated film ‘ROOM 5’ was nominated at Annecy International Animation Film Festival making him the only West African director to be nominated for the year and one of four films from Africa. He is a regular feature at Meta Cinema Forum, the largest Africa and Middle East film and cinema convention. He is also a planning committee member and artistic director of the Afrotino music festival where Latino and African performers will be meeting in a series of cross-country concerts in Panama, Costa Rica, Colombia and Mexico.

Where to find Francis?
animaxfybstudios.com
On LinkedIn
On Instagram
On Facebook
On YouTube

What’s Francis watching?
Afro Samurai
The Boondocks
Tales of the Black Freighter and Watchmen
SWAT Kats
Jonny Quest

Other topics of interest:
About Takoradi, Ghana
Watch Mmofra!
Koliko Animation Academy
How to use “Omo”
About DCI theaters
iRokoTV
ShowMax
Cinema in Ghana

Special Guest: Francis Y. Brown.

As you listen to this week’s episode you may catch a hint of showers as part of the sound track for this conversation with long-time collaborator, Takoradi, Ghana’s own Francis Brown. As the saying goes, showers bring flowers and in this two-part conversation we’re definitely cultivating a bouquet of beauty and insights.
Francis is one of the first professionals that I worked with when I arrived in Ghana; at that times he was a student at Ghana’s National Film and Television Institute (NAFTI). Since then, his career has flourished as founder and creative director of AnimaxFYB Studios in Ghana. He is an award-winning filmmaker trained in a number of different cinematic mediums, and has over ten years experience in the audio-visual industry. He is a member of the International Academy of Arts and Sciences (EMMY), a Jury at MIPCOM in Cannes and a frequent speaker on different film and television forums around the world. He was shortlisted for the 42nd Student Academy Awards (Oscars), won Best Animation Film at the Africa International Film Festival 2016 (AFFRIF), Best Creative Artist 2017 at the Black British Entertainment Awards, animator of the year at the 2017 Ghana UK Based Awards (GUBA) and also Best Animation at the 2018 Ghana Movie Awards. In 2019, face2face Africa named him one of the five African animators who can give their Hollywood counterparts a run for the money. In 2021, his short 3D animated film ‘ROOM 5’ was nominated at Annecy International Animation Film Festival making him the only West African director to be nominated for the year and one of four films from Africa. He is a regular feature at Meta Cinema Forum, the largest Africa and Middle East film and cinema convention. He is also a planning committee member and artistic director of the Afrotino music festival where Latino and African performers will be meeting in a series of cross-country concerts in Panama, Costa Rica, Colombia and Mexico.

Where to find Francis?
animaxfybstudios.com
On LinkedIn
On Instagram
On Facebook
On YouTube

What’s Francis watching?
Afro Samurai
The Boondocks
Tales of the Black Freighter and Watchmen
SWAT Kats
Jonny Quest

Other topics of interest:
About Takoradi, Ghana
Watch Mmofra!
Koliko Animation Academy
How to use “Omo”
About DCI theaters
iRokoTV
ShowMax
Cinema in Ghana

Special Guest: Francis Y. Brown.

I’m back in Accra and it’s HOT and HUMID, but thankfully not so dusty--I’ve successfully evaded the Harmattan! A significant contrast to the environs for my guest this week who dials in from her hometown of London, England. Raised between London and Brooklyn with roots in Jamaica, Aruba and Donimica, Marlea Edwards was drawn to the creative arts from theatre to photography, storytelling, mythology and anthropology from an early age. She is an award-winning, multi-disciplinary creative artist and creative consultant with a key focus on visual storytelling and connecting to audiences. She is CEO and founder of Me + You Films, a boutique production company. As a global, independent professional creative director, producer, director, writer, filmmaker, and edit producer, her early career and work includes working on award-winning BBC shows like Top Gear, Strictly Come Dancing and Eastenders 25 Live, to the London 2012 Olympic Games, London and New York Fashion week and Lenny Kravitz’s Strut Tour. Other Brands and Clients include Endemol, BBC, Tom Ford and Tom Ford Beauty, Gucci, DVF, Kohl’s, FarFetch, Lush Cosmetics, Preen and ITN Productions. Her latest project, Garms: Black Culture's Influence on British Fashion, a one-off documentary deep dive into the world of Black British fashion and culture premiers this week on Wednesday, February 21st.
Currently writing and freelancing for award-winning brands and production companies, her own and others, when she’s not working with commercial clients she creates artwork with an African spiritualist theme focused on the female form.

Where to find Marlea?
marleaedwards.com
On LinkedIn
On Instagram
On Vimeo
On Twitter
On [IMDb](= https://www.imdb.com/name/nm4237999/?ref_=nmbio_ov )

What’s Marlea listening to?
André 3000
Cleo Sol
Sampha

What’s Marlea watching?
One Day on Netflix
Champion on Netflix
Dreaming Whilst Black

Other topics of interest:
About Queens Park, London
About Wembley, UK
About Prospect Park, Brooklyn
About Miss Lou, Jamaican poet laureate
the london stage school
Who are Key Workers in the UK?
BET UK’s Cicela Deane
London Fashion Week
About Bianca Saunders
About Martine Rose
About Tolu Coker
About Labrum
About Althea McNish
Liberty London
About Nicholas Daley
Priya Ahluwalia
Cortez Streetwear
Windrush then and now
4 -7 - 8 Breathing

Special Guest: Marlea Edwards.

This week’s guest is fast becoming a cultural icon across her chosen disciplines. Ghanaian by ancestry and born in German and spending a formative part of her life in England, Nana Oforiatta Ayim is a writer, filmmaker, and art historian. She is Founder of the ANO Institute of Arts and Knowledge, through which she has pioneered a Pan-African Cultural Encyclopaedia, a Mobile Museums Project, and curated Ghana’s first pavilion at the Venice Biennale. She published her first novel The God Child in 2019, and in German in 2021. She has made award-winning films for museums such as Tate Modern, Los Angeles County Museum of Art and The New Museum. She is the recipient of various awards and honours, having been named one of the Apollo ’40 under 40’; one of 50 African Trailblazers by The Africa Report; a Quartz Africa Innovator in 2017; one of 12 African women making history in 2016 and one of 100 women of 2020 by Okayafrica. In 2020, she was appointed to the Advisory Council of Oxford University’s Cultural Programme and was a Principal Investigator on the Action for Restitution to Africa programme. She received the Ghana Woman of the Year Award in 2021. And in 2022 she was awarded the world’s biggest history prize from the Dan David Foundation for outstanding early and mid-career scholars and practitioners in the historical disciplines. Over the years it has been a treat to watch Nana’s vision come into being and even better was the chance to sit with her in one of her places of peace in Osu, Accra.

Where to find Nana?
https://www.nanaoforiattaayim.com/
On LinkedIn
On Instagram
On Facebook
On X

What’s Nana watching?
Past Lives

Other topics of interest:
About [Akyem, Ghana](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akyem ]
Aburi, Ghana
About Piet Mondrian
Gus Casely-Hayford
John Picton
About the Liverpool Biennial
Ousmane Sembène
Mooji
The Renoir Cinema

Special Guest: Nana Oforiatta Ayim.

This week on the podcast we have another two-part conversation, with one of Ghana’s foremost creative culture practitioners. Aseye Tamakloe is a filmmaker and lecturer at the National Film and Television Institute (NAFTI) and a PhD candidate at the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana Legon - both in Accra. She has worked as editor, director and producer on a number of local and international productions. As a freelance editor, her works include, award-winning films such as Perfect Picture, by Shirley Frimpong–Manso, Chronicles of Odumkrom:The Headmaster, by Ernest Kofi Abbeyquaye, Who is Afraid of Ngugi by Malian filmmaker, Manthia Diawara, and Freetown by US filmmaker, Garret Barty. She is a co-programmer for the Film Africa Festival, London’s biggest celebration of African and African diaspora cinema presented by the Royal African Society. She was also the Festival Manager and Director of the European Film Festival, Ghana. (EUFFGH). She is the founder and festival director of Ndiva Women’s Film Festival which aims to create artistic platforms for the presentation and preservation of work by, for and about women. And, most recently she is director and editor of the documentary film When Women Speak.

Keep reading for a wealth of further insights into topics discussed during our conversation. I learned so much about African cinema history and present, and I have a feeling from this session with this Glocal Citizen, you will too!

Where to find Aseye?
When Women Speak Film
On [LinkedIn](linkedin.com/in/aseye-tamakloe-28729a2a)
On Instagram
On Facebook
On Twitter
On YouTube

Who is Aseye reading?
Paulo Coelho
Ama Ata Aidoo
[Kofi Awoonor]((https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kofi_Awoonor "smartCard-inline")
Leila Aboulela
Okyeame Literary Magazine
Toni Morrison
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Who is Aseye listening to?
Culture
Amakye Dede
Opera Greats

Other topics of interest:
Film, Form and Culture by Robert Kolker
Alice Guy-Blaché
D.W. Griffith
Mr. Mensah Builds a House
The Boy Kumasenu
GFIC - Ghana Film Industry Corporation
1966 Coup d’Etat in Ghana
Hamile: The Tongo Hamlet
I Told You So
Five Fingers for Marseilles
Ghana Academy of Film and Television Arts
Fescpaco
Black Star International Film Festival
NCWD in action
Gen Z (Zoomers) vs Millennials
Abantu Ghana
About Desiderata Poem

Special Guest: Aseye Tamakloe.

This week on the podcast we have another two-part conversation, with one of Ghana’s foremost creative culture practitioners. Aseye Tamakloe is a filmmaker and lecturer at the National Film and Television Institute (NAFTI) and a PhD candidate at the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana Legon - both in Accra. She has worked as editor, director and producer on a number of local and international productions. As a freelance editor, her works include, award-winning films such as Perfect Picture, by Shirley Frimpong–Manso, Chronicles of Odumkrom:The Headmaster, by Ernest Kofi Abbeyquaye, Who is Afraid of Ngugi by Malian filmmaker, Manthia Diawara, and Freetown by US filmmaker, Garret Barty. She is a co-programmer for the Film Africa Festival, London’s biggest celebration of African and African diaspora cinema presented by the Royal African Society. She was also the Festival Manager and Director of the European Film Festival, Ghana. (EUFFGH). She is the founder and festival director of Ndiva Women’s Film Festival which aims to create artistic platforms for the presentation and preservation of work by, for and about women. And, most recently she is director and editor of the documentary film When Women Speak.

Keep reading for a wealth of further insights into topics discussed during our conversation. I learned so much about African cinema history and present, and I have a feeling from this session with this Glocal Citizen, you will too!

Where to find Aseye?
When Women Speak Film
On [LinkedIn](linkedin.com/in/aseye-tamakloe-28729a2a)
On Instagram
On Facebook
On Twitter
On YouTube

Who is Aseye reading?
Paulo Coelho
Ama Ata Aidoo
[Kofi Awoonor]((https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kofi_Awoonor "smartCard-inline")
Leila Aboulela
Okyeame Literary Magazine
Toni Morrison
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Who is Aseye listening to?
Culture
Amakye Dede
Opera Greats

Other topics of interest:
Film, Form and Culture by Robert Kolker
Alice Guy-Blaché
D.W. Griffith
Mr. Mensah Builds a House
The Boy Kumasenu
GFIC - Ghana Film Industry Corporation
1966 Coup d’Etat in Ghana
Hamile: The Tongo Hamlet
I Told You So
Five Fingers for Marseilles
Ghana Academy of Film and Television Arts
Fescpaco
Black Star International Film Festival
NCWD in action
Gen Z (Zoomers) vs Millennials
Abantu Ghana
About Desiderata Poem

Special Guest: Aseye Tamakloe.

Where to find Bara?
On LinkedIn
On Instagram
On Twitter
On Facebook

What's Bara reading?
The African Origin of Civilization by Cheikh Anta Diop

Other topics of interest:
Mor Faye
KoToa Coffee in Dakar
Doudou N'Diaye Rose
On Senegal's BDS party
First World Festival of Negro Arts
Spike Lee's 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks

Special Guest: Bara Diokhané .

My guest for the next two episodes is Emmanuel Etim, founder of Refined Creative. Emmanuel is a Nigerian-American that now calls Accra home base of operations offering production and training services with the goal of raising awareness of international development and innovations through visual storytelling.

In Part 1 of our discussion Emmanuel tells us about his early exposure to non-fiction story-telling through six degrees of separation from Michael Moore and how he came to call Accra home, for now.

Links of Interest
Find out more about Emmanuel and the Refined Creative vision here.
and
On Linkedin
On Instagram

What's Emmanuel watching?
Longmire on Netflix

Special Guest: Emmanuel Etim.