Uzoamaka Power


Uzoamaka Power ' is a Nigerian actor, writer, and director. She is known for her starring roles in films that include Mami Wata, The Weekend, and With Difficulty Comes Ease''.

Early life and education

Power was born and raised in Onitsha. She is the eldest of four children.
She received a degree in English and history from the University of Nigeria and an MA in creative writing from the University of Birmingham.

Career

After a two-year stay in England for her graduate studies, Power returned to Nigeria in 2017. Upon attending the open auditions for the popular series MTV Shuga, she won the role of Cynthia, and starred in the series from 2018 to 2019.
In 2020 she appeared in a special edition of the series: titled MTV Shuga Alone Together, the mini-series brought together cast members from Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa and Ivory Coast highlighting the challenges people were facing across the continent during the Coronavirus pandemic.
In 2019 she was a lead in the short film Stuck alongside Seun Ajayi and Lala Akindoju, and in 2020 appeared in Africa Magic's Riona, a period drama, one of the top 5 Nigerian TV series of the year. 2020 also saw her take on one of the lead roles in Ife, an LGBT love story for which she received the Kim Renders Memorial Award for Outstanding Performance from the Reelout Film Festival in 2021.
In 2021 Power was listed as a Nigerian actress to watch by Nigerian Entertainment Today. That year, she went on to appear in several shorts including in the title role of the female superhero "The Zipman" in the supernatural thriller, Ananze and the Zipman, ''Sister Rose, and Title Ije. She was also named by Filmone as one of its "Box Office Breakthrough" actresses for her lead role in the comedy hit Ponzi.
In 2022, she starred in the Nigerian thriller Diiche, Showmax's first Nigerian original limited series. The series received seven nominations at the 2023 2023 [Africa Magic Viewers' Choice Awards|Africa Magic Viewers' Choice Awards] including for Best Series.
Power appeared in one of Africa's most lauded films of 2023, the award-winning fantasy thriller [Mami Wata (film)|Mami Wata] written and directed by C.J. "Fiery" Obasi. In addition to being the List of Nigerian submissions for the [Academy Award for Best International Feature Film|Nigerian entry] for Best International Feature Film at the 96th Academy Awards, it received a multitude of awards and a Best Supporting Actress nomination for Power at the 2023 Africa Movie Academy Awards. In 2023 she also made her directorial debut with Love Language, a short film about an intertribal love affair, which she also wrote and starred in.
2024 was a standout year for Power. She appeared in over a half a dozen films including Daniel Oriahi's thriller The Weekend, a commercial and critical success that garnered her a Best Actress nomination at the 20th edition of the Africa Movie Academy Awards. In With Difficulty Comes Ease, an Amazon Prime Video feature directed by Korede Azezez, Power plays a young Igbo-Hausa widow who has to navigate both her grief and cultural expectations after losing her husband. She also appeared in Ifeoma Nkiruka Chukwuogo's Phoenix Fury, which won the Best Film and Best Director awards at the Africa International Film Festival in November 2024.
In 2025 Power appeared in a supporting role in Akinola Davies Jr.'s My Father's Shadow, the first Nigerian film to be selected for the Cannes Film Festival's Official Selection, where it won the Caméra d'Or Special Mention. Also in 2025 she wrote, directed and starred in the short film My Body, God’s Temple, part of Zikoko Life’ YouTube anthology. Her next film, Siraam,'' a coming-of-age story that she wrote and directed starring Genoveva Umeh, was released in December at the S16 Film Festival, a platform aimed at African indie filmmakers.

Writing

Power is a published fiction writer. An excerpt from her work Balcony was edited and published by the Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Her short story The Child That I was Not was Adichie's selection for "Story of the Week" for the literary journal The Missing Slate in January 2017. The literary platform Brittle Paper also published works by Power: Tea Glass: An African Story in 2015 and Mama Juror and Rush Green in 2017.

Name change

Born Uzoamaka Aniunoh, the actress announced in 2025 that she was adopting Power as her professional last name.
In an interview with Nollywood film outlet What Kept Me Up, she explained that Power "resonates with me on a profound level....It symbolises strength, resilience, and the energy I bring to my craft." She had been using the name informally since 2018, often with the hashtag, when sharing her work on social media.

Filmography

Television