It’s a strange but perhaps fitting paradox of these uncertain times that while African cinema is enjoying greater visibility than ever before, the market for that output could very well be shrinking. For the continent’s industry professionals taking part in this year’s European Film Market, the hope in a frosty Berlin is that they won’t be…well, left out in the cold.
First, the good news: From a creative standpoint, African cinema is thriving, with premieres at top-shelf film festivals now the norm for the continent’s filmmakers. This year’s Berlinale will see both Chadian auteur Mahamat-Saleh Haroun (“Soumsoum, the Night of the Stars”) and Silver Bear-winning French Senegalese filmmaker Alain Gomis (“Dao”) vying for the Golden Bear.
Meanwhile, in the festival’s Panorama strand, Nigeria’s Olive Nwosu will screen her debut feature, “Lady,” which arrives in Berlin fresh off its prize-winning Sundance premiere, while South African rising talent Sandulela Asanda’s debut “Black Burns Fast” will have its international premiere in the Generation 14plus section.
The continent is abuzz with fresh talents and flush with new investment. Financial vehicles such as the African Export-Import Bank’s billion-dollar Africa Film Fund, Next Narrative Africa and HEVA Fund’s $40 million content creator initiative and a raft of other funding schemes have signaled a concerted effort — perhaps for the first time ever — to inject a steady stream of cash into the continent’s screen industries.
But who’s buying?
Recent waves of consolidation and course-correction among the global streaming platforms have seen them drastically scale back their investment in the continent. As a result, after a brief flirtation with a truly global distribution pipeline, opportunities largely seem to be dwindling for African filmmakers to reach worldwide audiences.
Meanwhile, hardly five months after France’s Canal+ Group completed its long-gestating $2 billion takeover of South African pay-TV giant MultiChoice, solidifying a merger of the two largest media players on the continent, a sense of foreboding remains over the fallout.
“It is terrifying to think that there is one less buyer in an already shrinking market,” says Urucu Media’s Cait Pansegrouw, who produced Asanda’s “Black Burns Fast,” and is currently in post-production on the forthcoming feature from South Africa’s John Trengove (“The Wound,” “Manodrome”).
“I’m hoping it will give a sense of stabilization in the industry,” she adds. “But because they haven’t been very forthcoming about what their strategy is, I don’t know what that stability looks like.”
Last month, Canal+ CFO Amandine Ferré announced that the company was assessing its plans for MultiChoice’s streaming service Showmax, insisting that the platform’s losses are “a big issue” and “not acceptable” for the French media giant. Any cost-cutting measures at the homegrown streamer would deal a severe blow to the many African filmmakers it’s supported. (Canal+ and MultiChoice were unable to comment before this story went to press.)
For its part, Canal+ has signaled its intent to take big swings on prestige African content, recently greenlighting “Heist of Benin,” a film directed by Ava DuVernay and starring David Oyelowo. It also insists it’s doubling down on its mission to give a global platform to breakout African series like sports drama “Spinners” and period epic “Shaka iLembe.”
Olive Nwosu’s “Lady” premiered at Sundance.
Courtesy of HanWay Films
Moses Babatope, the former Odeon exec who launched his Lagos-based production and distribution company Nile Media Entertainment Group in 2024, notes that the contraction in the global streaming space has prompted a “reset” in the African market — and along with it, some much-needed soul-searching.
“It’s pushing us now to have real conversations on our over-reliance on foreign-owned platforms for monetization,” he says. “That’s not how you build a viable, thriving industry.”
Marie Lora-Mungai, founder of advisory firm Restless Global and a leading expert on Africa’s creative industries, agrees, noting that “African industry professionals are not sitting idle” in the face of ongoing disruptions.
“In Nigeria especially, we’re seeing a real push to experiment with local solutions, even as global streamers retreat or become more selective,” she says. “Although the distribution crunch is brutal, what makes me hopeful is that the response is becoming more sophisticated: fewer illusions about easy scale, more experimentation with format, technology and global cultural positioning.
“That’s a healthier place to be than quiet dependence on global streamers that can pivot away overnight,” she adds.
There are other bright spots. While theatrical exhibition has struggled across much of the globe, it’s seen a renaissance in several African markets, with Nigeria breaking box-office records last year and Pathé Cinemas steadily growing its footprint across the continent. A small subset of filmmakers, such as Nigeria’s Omoni Oboli and Ruth Kadiri, are thriving on platforms like YouTube, buttressing hopes that a homegrown creator economy in Africa might someday prosper.
Across the board, there is a sense that African industry professionals are playing the long game. For investors like the Logical Pictures Group, the film and TV equity giant that launched its Logical African Stories fund in 2024, the goal is to invest in companies “across the ecosystem of TV and cinema,” including studios, post-production facilities and distribution companies, according to Logical Pictures Africa’s Pape Boye. “We want to support creativity at the source.”
“Soumsoum, the Night of the Stars” will compete for the Golden Bear.
Courtesy of Pili Films
With the right support systems in place, such creativity will thrive, as recent accolades can attest. Witness Nigerian director Akinola Davies Jr.’s scintillating debut, “My Father’s Shadow,” which was one of the most talked-about titles at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, or South African directing duo Jason Jacobs and Devon Delmar’s “Variations on a Theme,” which just scooped the Tiger Award in Rotterdam.
Of course, such triumphs alone won’t “solve the mass-market distribution problem,” notes Lora-Mungai. But they do prove that “African storytelling is increasingly legible, competitive and valued at the highest global levels. This matters for reputation, deal-flow and future financing.”
It remains to be seen how such factors will play out at this year’s EFM. But Jean-Christophe Simon, CEO of Films Boutique, which is repping Haroun’s Golden Bear contender “Soumsoum,” insists there are reasons for African filmmakers in Berlin to be hopeful.
Though “the arthouse market is really tough these days,” Simon notes that there’s still “a certain excitement” among distributors encountering movies from countries that are still largely underrepresented on screen. He points to the success of Haroun’s last film, “Lingui, the Sacred Bonds,” which competed for the Palme d’Or in 2021 and sold to more than 25 countries, including the U.S. and the U.K. with Mubi.
The sales veteran also cites one other bright spot for the sellers convening this week in the Gropius Bas. “Berlin is one of the best places to premiere, because it’s a place where distributors take a bit more risk.”