Meet Kofi Oliver

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Kofi Oliver. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Kofi below.

Kofi, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?

If you want to understand resilience in Hollywood, you’ve got to start with rejection. It’s not something that happens once in a while; it’s par for the course. You learn to take the hits, develop a thick skin, and tuck your ego in your pocket. Because if you don’t, this business will chew you up and spit you out.

But the loss that really shaped me wasn’t professional in the usual sense. It wasn’t about a job or a credit. It felt personal. Almost like a romanti relationship that you’d poured years of heart and time into only to watch it walk away.

I’ve always been drawn to real stories, the kind that live in the gray areas between right and wrong, hero and villain. Years ago, I found one that completely consumed me: George Wright AKA Jorge Luis dos Santos, a man who escaped prison, hijacked a plane, and vanished for decades. His life was wild, cinematic, and deeply human. I wasn’t chasing a headline; I was chasing an amazing story that would change my life.

What most people don’t realize is that developing a story like that isn’t just about contracts or access, it’s about trust. I had to earn the confidence of George, his wife, and his attorney over years of quiet conversations and careful communication. They were dealing with their own storms, and I had to prove that I was the one who could tell their story with care and honesty. It wasn’t a transaction, it was a partnership grounded in trust.

That story became my identity. It was the thing I woke up thinking about, the thing that made me feel alive.

And then, like it often goes in this business, the rug got pulled out. Despite all the work, all the love, all the belief, the project slipped away. The story rights I I’d worked so hard to earn expired, and were immediately scooped up by a powerhouse team that included an Oscar-winning director and a major actor. Watching it go felt like heartbreak in its purest form.

And let me keep it a buck… it broke me for a while. Not in a dramatic, throw-your-laptop-out-the-window way, but in that quiet, internal way where you start questioning everything you thought you knew about yourself. You go through all the stages–denial, anger, grief, shame, self-doubt. And then, when you’ve burned through all that, you start to find the lesson buried inside the wreckage.

For me, the lesson was this: failure in Hollywood isn’t a verdict on your talent. It’s just math. It’s odds. And sometimes they don’t land in your favor. What I didn’t lose was what brought me there; the instinct to find great stories and the ability to earn people’s trust. That’s my superpower.

So I leaned into that. I took the pain and turned it into fuel. I stopped chasing validation and started chasing stories again, the kind that make my pulse quicken, that remind me why I do this. And, slowly, new ones came. They always do.

Losing the George Wright story was brutal, but it gave me something far more valuable: proof that I can take a hit like that and still keep creating. That’s the real currency in this business.

And who knows…? The story still hasn’t been told yet, and what goes around comes around!

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

I am a writer, producer, and director, with a career rooted deeply in storytelling. While I’ve worked on both scripted and unscripted television and taken on the responsibilities of producing and directing, my central identity and passion have always been the writer’s craft. The title may shift, but the core work remains the same: taking an idea, a piece of history, or a wild concept, and transforming it into a compelling narrative that resonates with an audience.

What I find most exciting and special about my work is the versatility it demands. I might be developing a hard-hitting true-life drama for an unscripted docuseries, navigating complex real-world situations and ethical questions. Or, I might be immersed in a purely imagined world, working on punching up the comedy in a script or ratcheting up the tension in a thriller or horror project. This constant mental shift keeps the work fresh, allowing me to use the emotional depth required for true stories to ground my genre work and use the sharp precision of genre to elevate my overall narrative skills.

The last few years have presented immense challenges for the entertainment industry, and I won’t pretend it hasn’t been personally difficult. The landscape has shifted dramatically, often feeling very uncertain, with lots of colleagues being forced to transition out of the business altogether. However, these challenges have only strengthened my resolve. Instead of pulling back, I’ve doubled down on my commitment to the craft. I took the volatility as a chance to focus purely on the fundamentals: developing new, interesting stories that are ready for the marketplace. Recognition like being selected for the celebrated Hollywood writing platform, the Black List’s 2025 Georgia List is both validation and fuel to keep pushing.

My brand is built on perseverance, versatility, and creativity. I’ve used this time to become incredibly busy writing and developing a diverse slate of film and television projects. These are narratives across different genres, at various budgets, that I believe are perfect for the current market. I am actively seeking producing partners and investors who share a vision for high-quality, impactful content to help bring these projects to life.

In a huge personal expansion, I’ve also taken on a new challenge: writing my first novel, The Reckoning, a work of speculative fiction. Moving from the collaborative world of screenwriting to the solitary, sustained effort of novel-writing has been a fantastic and daunting process, and I am embracing every step of it.

Finally, I want readers to know that my creative expression isn’t limited to the page or the screen. I am also an avid photographer, an art form that serves as a vital complement to my writing. Photography allows me to capture and compose narratives frame-by-frame, honing my visual storytelling instincts in a way that directly informs my work as a director and producer.

Ultimately, I want readers to know that my focus is on the work. I am dedicated to finding and telling stories, wherever they may take me, be it through scripts, novels, or a camera lens and I am ready to collaborate with partners to bring them to life.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

1. The foundation of everything is the craft. This means knowing the mechanics of your medium, whether it’s screenwriting structure, directorial blocking, or novel composition. It’s about being technically proficient, constantly striving to get better, and, most importantly, learning to take criticism. In this business, your work will always be a draft until it’s produced, and if you can’t incorporate feedback, you can’t grow.

Advice for Developing This: Treat feedback like a gift, even when it stings. When you receive notes on a project, don’t immediately defend your choices, pout, or crawl up into a ball and cry (okay, you can cry a little). Do, step away for a couple of days. Then, read the notes with the goal of understanding the problem the note-giver sees, not necessarily agreeing with their suggested solution. Acknowledging the problem is the first step to becoming a better craftsman. Never stop reading and analyzing the masters in your field.

2. Stick-to-itiveness (Follow-Through)
In the creative world, the difference between a great idea and a successful career is often Stick-to-itiveness. This is the quality of finishing what you start and seeing things through, regardless of how tedious the final polish becomes. Ideas are cheap; finished projects are currency. Every time a project hits a major hurdle–a producer or network note, a personality conflict, or just creative exhaustion–that’s when most people quit. The ability to push past that final resistance is what sets professionals apart.

Advice for Developing This: The most important step is often the most difficult: just finish the “vomit draft.” A completed, imperfect draft is infinitely more valuable than a perfect outline you’re waiting for inspiration to strike on. Stop sitting around waiting for genius. Just get to “FADE OUT.” The real work, the polishing and the genius, happens in the rewriting process anyway. Practice the habit of tiny, daily wins and commit to sustained, modest effort.

3. Networking (The Human Element)
This is an area I will be honest needs constant improvement for me, but its impact is undeniable: the entertainment business is a “who you know” world, and success requires effective Networking. It’s not just about getting introduced to the right people; it’s about building genuine, human relationships based on shared passion and trust. As a storyteller, you can have the best script, but if you don’t have the relationships that can shepherd it through the development process, it may never see the light of day.

Advice for Developing This: Shift your mindset from “What can this person do for me?” to “How can I be a resource?” Always lead with genuine interest in their work. When meeting someone new, follow up quickly with a short, helpful link or article relevant to a topic you discussed. This establishes you not as a taker, but as a thoughtful professional. Remember that the best networking happens when you are being productive.

Okay, so before we go we always love to ask if you are looking for folks to partner or collaborate with?

Absolutely! I am actively looking to partner and collaborate with people who are ready to make things happen with integrity. I’ve used the industry’s recent difficult years to sharpen my focus and build a diverse slate of highly viable projects, and now I need the right partners to shepherd them into production.

Specifically, I am seeking two types of collaborators:

1. Producing Partners
I am looking for a hands-on producing partner who has a keen “nose for money” and a proven ability to pull projects together. This is a business built on relationships and logistics. I want to work with someone who can navigate the financing and packaging process, manage the business of creative development, and share the passion for making compelling work. Finding the right partner means finding someone who complements my creative drive with strong financial acumen and an entrepreneurial spirit.

2. Investors
I am also shamelessly looking for investors. Every filmmaker says this, but in my case, it’s integral to the mission. My materials, across true-life stories, thrillers, and speculative fiction, are viable, prepared, and ready for the market. I want to work with people who view content not just as art, but as a worthwhile investment opportunity; people who are ready to back projects with integrity and see a return on work that stands out.

How to Connect:
If you are a producing partner or investor who values tenacity, strong storytelling, and is ready to move a project from the script phase to production, the best way to connect is through my professional contact information.

Please reach out via my official website or my LinkedIn profile. When you contact me, reference the Bold Journey interview and briefly mention which aspect of my work, be it my true-life narratives, my genre projects, or my new novel The Reckoning, specifically caught your attention. This helps start a focused and productive conversation right away. I’m not hard to find!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.akiaent.com, www.kofioliverphotography.com
• Instagram: @kofioliverphoto, @kofioliverphoto_ii
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kofiaoliver/
• Twitter: @kofioliver