Visiting tutor on the Arts University Bournemouth (AUB) Creative Writing degree, Dean Atta, won Best Short Animation for Two Black Boys in Paradise.
Two Black Boys in Paradise was written and executive produced by Atta, telling the story of two young gay black men Eden, 19, and Dula,18.
Their journey, imagined as a “paradise free from shame and judgement”, was adapted from a poem Atta wrote, inspired by his own religious upbringing.
The nine-minute stop-motion animation was created by a team of more than 100 over five years.
“It’s been a real joy to see it go from a poem to animation to now a Bafta awarding winning short film – it’s just been incredible,” he said.
A multi-award-winning poet of Greek Cypriot and Jamaican heritage, Atta is the author of seven books, including the verse novel The Black Flamingo, which won a Stonewall Book Award and was shortlisted for major literary prizes. His poems have been adapted for screen before, and his work has been commissioned by national galleries and featured on BBC platforms.
Dean Atta is a British poet of Cypriot and Caribbean descent. He has been listed by The Independent newspaper as one of the 100 most influential LGBT people in the United Kingdom. In 2012, his poem “I Am Nobody’s Nigger”, written in response to the use of the racial slur by the murderers of Stephen Lawrence, achieved much social media coverage, and he was profiled in The Guardian.
Born to a Greek Cypriot mother and Jamaican father, he earned a BA degree (2006) in Philosophy and English from the University of Sussex, where he was president of the African Caribbean Society.His poetry, which often deals with questions of identity and social justice, has been featured on BBC Radio 4, and he has been commissioned to write for museums and galleries including the Keats House Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, London, Tate Britain and Tate Modern. In 2018, Atta served as a judge for the BBC Young Writers Award.[6]
In 2019 Atta’s verse novel, The Black Flamingo, was published by Hachette UK. For The Black Flamingo, Atta was one of two winners of the Stonewall Book Award 2020 in the Children’s and Young Adults category. The book was praised by the author Malorie Blackman. His poem “I Come From” was adapted into a film by afshan d’souza-lodhi.
In 2024, Atta was the runner up in the Caterpillar Poetry Prize.
In 2025, Atta’s short film ‘Two Black Boys in Paradise’ was nominated for several major awards.
The British Academy Film Awards (the BAFTAs or BAFTA Awards; is an annual film award show hosted by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) to honour the best British and international film contributions.
Photo from @deanatta instagram