CHIWETEL
EJIOFOR

Chiwetel Ejiofor is a British actor, writer and director born in London on 10 July 1977. His career includes theatre, international film productions and stories he has brought to the screen as a director.

Ejiofor’s stage work includes Othello, for which he received an Olivier Award. On screen, his credits range across dramas and genre films, giving him roles in stories of personal conflict as well as larger historical events.

In Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave (2013), he played Solomon Northup, a free Black man abducted and sold into slavery. Ejiofor won the BAFTA for leading actor and received an Academy Award nomination for the performance.

Ejiofor made his feature directorial debut with The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (2019), adapted from William Kamkwamba’s memoir. The film follows a boy in Malawi who builds a wind-powered pump to help his community.

He later wrote and directed Rob Peace, adapting Jeff Hobbs’s book about a young man whose life cannot be reduced to a simple story of leaving home. Across his acting and filmmaking, individual choices remain closely tied to the communities and systems around them.