Having just won the Best Male Lead in the Independent Spirit Awards for his role in the movie, Beasts of No Nation (BON), a few weeks ago, Abraham Attah is relocating to the United States from Ghana to complete his education, with a scholarship from Netflix.
Attah was rumoured to be a street vendor before he was scouted by Cary Fukunaga, producer and director of BON. However, the teen actor was in school and was scouted playing football on the field. Since his debut role in BON, Attah has continued to win acclaim for his acting prowess and the enormous potential that awaits him in the film industry. Recently, he had the honour of presenting an award at the 88th Academy Awards.
“Attah plays the role with such convincing reality you’d swear he had been in front of the camera for years prior,” noted Jason Guerrasio and the IndieWire describes his performance as one that “marks one of the most impressive screen débuts in recent memory.”
In September 2015, Attah won his first award, the Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best New Actor at the 2015 Venice Film Festival and has since been jetting around the world, attending film festivals and premiers, holding press conferences and gracing the covers of several magazines. Therefore, it is no surprise that the world’s leading internet television network, Netflix, has decided to grant Attah an award of their own, as they were responsible for the worldwide release of the movie.
Attah is not working on any movie at the moment, but after BON, he featured in a short film – Out of the Village, produced and directed by Jonathan Stein and Bryan Singer. The film explores the social and cultural impact of the Ebola epidemic from the perspective of an orphaned brother and his sister. The 15-year old has also landed a movie role in the adventure-drama The Modern Ocean and will be acting alongside Hollywood A-Listers like Keanu Reeves, Anne Hathaway and Daniel Radcliffe.
Watch the video of Abraham Attah receiving the award for Best Male Lead at the 2016 Film Independent Spirit Award:
