Author: Tambay A. Obenson

I spent most of the last week speaking with people who had just been part of something unusual. It wasn’t a typical film lab. There were no pitch sessions, no industry panels, no race to build a portfolio. What took place instead was slower. A group of artists and thinkers gathered in southern Africa, where […]

Financial transparency is still rare in African screen sectors. Budgets are often undisclosed, documentation is uneven, and many productions rely on informal systems. This report—produced by Akoroko and powered by African Screen Intelligence (ASI)—offers a first step toward clearer visibility. We analyzed the financing behind films telling African stories at Berlinale 2025. When hard numbers […]

A prominent French-Burkinabè film journalist, critic, distributor, speaker, and staunch advocate for African filmmaking worldwide, Claire Diao’s extensive background in promoting African films and filmmakers both within the continent and internationally, is renowned. As founder of the traveling screening series “Quartiers Lointains,” creating the Pan-African film criticism magazine Awotele, and launching sales and distribution company […]

Throughout 2025, a global series of retrospectives, conferences, and screenings will celebrate the centennial of Paulin Soumanou Vieyra (1925–1987), a pioneering filmmaker, critic, and historian whose contributions remain essential to understanding what we call “African cinema” today.  Even with his foundational role, Vieyra’s legacy is often eclipsed by later generations of filmmakers. Subsequently, the centenary […]

Djibouti’s Agence Nationale de Promotion de la Culture (ANPC) has partnered with the Observatoire Panafricain de l’Audiovisuel et du Cinéma (OPAC) to position the country as a strategic hub for African cinema. This state-led initiative, backed by the African Union, UNESCO, and the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF), will provide data, industry intelligence, and […]

As we approach the close of the first quarter of 2025, this report captures the distribution outcomes of films telling African stories / African films that premiered at *major* international film festivals of the season: Sundance, IFFR, and Berlinale. Why these festivals? Their global reach and prestige make them key hubs for industry professionals and […]

In a March 11, 2025 retrospective, iROKOtv founder Jason Njoku looked back on the company’s 15-year journey and asked: “Did the market win?” His answer? Yes—at least when it comes to premium streaming in Nigeria. Per Njoku, iROKOtv spent over $100M trying to build a streaming business but exited Nigeria by 2023, while its content […]

The Pan-African Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou (FESPACO), which recently wrapped up its 29th edition, established the African Film Library of Ouagadougou in 1989 during its 20th anniversary. Located at FESPACO’s headquarters in Burkina Faso, the institution collects, preserves, and promotes African films and related materials, making it one of the continent’s largest film conservation centers. From […]

It’s a question I hear often, at festivals, on panels, in interviews, in casual conversation, usually framed in different ways: What are your top African films? What have you been watching? What would you recommend? Give me your top 5 African films or filmmakers. The inquiry itself feels innocent enough. People are curious, and given my […]