Born in Lagos, Nigeria, Olive Nwosu is an award-winning screenwriter and director living in London. Olive graduated with an MFA in Filmmaking from Columbia University School of the Arts where she received a BAFTA Pigott 2020 Scholarship and was named 2020 Alex Sichel Fellow for a Female Filmmaker demonstrating promise. Olive won the Zaki Gordon Memorial Award for Excellence in Screenwriting, and the James Ponsoldt Award for Best Director in her graduating year.
She has written and directed two short films. TROUBLEMAKER, 2019, played at film festivals around the world and was acquired by Dedza Films and Kino Lorber. It is the first Igbo-language film on the Criterion Channel.
EGÚNGÚN (MASQUERADE), 2021, was financed by the British Film Institute and British Council as part of their More Films For Freedom Programme. It premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2021, screened at Sundance 2022, won Best Short Film at Hamptons International Film Festival and Aspen ShortsFest, amongst others. The film was nominated for the Best British Short Film at the 2021 British Independent Film Awards and is now available on the Criterion Channel.
Olive is a 2022 Sundance Screenwriting Fellow, a 2022 TIFF Filmmaker Lab Fellow, the first recipient of the TIFF Share Her Journey Fellowship in honour of Viola Desmond, and one of four ‘African Promises’ directors selected by the Institute Francais. In 2023, she received the Sundance NHK Award, presented each year to one filmmaker on the basis of his/her past work (feature film, short film, television drama, music video, or commercial) and the script for their next feature film project.
She is currently in development on feature projects with Film4, the BBC, and Fox Searchlight Pictures.
Her work is informed by the intersectional nature of her life across multiple continents and identities. Her mission is to tell urgent, cinematic, African-centred stories.
Sundance Advisor //