George Amponsah

George Bernard Amponsah (born 1968 in Roehampton) is a British director of documentary films. George completed direction of his first drama feature in 2023 - ‘Gassed Up’ – about a London youth who gets mixed up with a rampaging gang of moped thieves. The Guardian called Gassed Up ‘A Scorsese-like thrill ride’. Gassed Up had a UK nationwide cinema release in Feb 2024 and subsequently played on the Amazon Prime streaming platform.

Amponsah's 2015 feature-length documentary about the death of Mark Duggan, The Hard Stop, won him a 2017 BAFTA nomination for the Award for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer.

Biography
Born and raised in London, Amponsah is of Ghanaian parentage. He started taking photographs and working with Super 8mm film in the 1980s. In 1989, he attended the University of East London, and a post-graduate film won him a scholarship to take the directing course at the National Film and Television School (NFTS). Since graduating in 2000 from the NFTS, he has taught documentary filmmaking there and at the Met Film School. He continued to work as a tutor with young people, while making short films for the web and developing new feature films.

His 2004 BBC documentary The Importance of Being Elegant was about Congolese singer Papa Wemba. The Fighting Spirit (2007) followed three young boxers in Ghana.

His 2015 feature-length documentary about the death of Mark Duggan, The Hard Stop, was nominated in 2017 for a BAFTA in the category "Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer", and for two British Independent Film Awards: Best Documentary and Breakthrough Producer.

Amponsah's debut feature film, Gassed Up, was announced for launch on Amazon Prime Video in 2023.

Documentaries

 * First steps, 1998.
 * The Importance of Being Elegant, 2004.
 * The Fighting Spirit, 2007.
 * Bruised to Be Used, 2008.
 * One Plus One, 2008.
 * Diaspora Calling, 2011.
 * The Hard Stop, 2015.
 * Dope, 2018.
 * Black Power: A British Story of Resistance, 2021.