Samantha Asumadu

Samantha Asumadu is a filmmaker, campaigner, former journalist and founder of Media Diversified and the Media Diversified Experts Directory. She is also co-founder of the Bare Lit Festival Media Diversified is a non-profit independent publishing platform which seeks to cultivate and promote skilled writers of colour. Live since July 2013, the initiative is already diversifying the UK's media landscape, providing important, challenging and new content which contributes to global as well as domestic discussion on issues of justice and equality and presents fresh perspectives and insightful commentary on social, cultural and political issues. Under the name the Feminist Filmmaker, she films, produces and edits videos for commercial and non-commercial use and screening. Her decade long commitment to grassroots activism has led to her campaigning on issues such as women's representation in Theatre, Sickle cell and UN peacekeeper abuse since 2001. As a journalist she was based in East Africa, Great Lakes region where she covered stories such as Acid Attacks, Blood Minerals in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Kampala bombings of 2010 for news outlets including CNN, France 24, Deutsche Welle and Agence France Presse. Her first documentary was broadcast by Aljazeera English in 2009. 'The Super Ladies' is the story of three Ugandan women rally drivers. She has written for The Guardian, Ceasefire Magazine, The Telegraph and The New Statesman and appeared on BBC Women's Hour, LBC and BBC World. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a judge in the 2016 Comment Awards Samantha was chosen to be one of the Libertine 100 in 2015, 'A maverick community of thinkers, makers and doers with ideas that will change the world.'