The European Culural Foundation of the Netherlands has unanimously voted to award Ghanaian/British filmmaker John Akomfrah with their 4th Routes Princess Margriet Award of 25,000 Euros.

Akomfrah, whose latest film Nine Muses opened in New York last year and played at several film festivals including the Sundance and London Film Festivals, will be presented with the award on March 19. 2012 at a ceremony in Brussels by HRN Prinecess Margiret of the Netherlands.

According to the Foundation, Akomfrah was selected from among 90 other nominations "for his ground-breaking film oeuvre woven from perspectives often hidden from the accepted narratives of European history"

As we stated back in October in an item about Akomfrah, originally from Accra, Ghana, Akomfrah moved to the UK as a child. He studied art and sociology in college. At 28, he made his seminal film, Handsworth (1986), about racial and civil strife of 1980s Britain, and has since made 16 other films, including Seven Songs for Malcolm X (1993), Martin Luther King: Days of Hope (1997) and The Wonderful World of Louis Armstrong (1999).

A special hat tip to Urban Cineaste