Category: The Latest

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 […]

On February 7, 2025, Nigerian filmmaker Kunle Afolayan announced that his 2016 film, “The CEO,” would be released for free on YouTube, followed by his 2011 romantic dramedy, “Phone Swap,” on February 28. Both films have already gone through primary theatrical, pay-TV, and streaming distribution windows. In a February 12 interview, Afolayan explained that this […]

Haile Gerima’s “Black Lions, Roman Wolves: The Children of Adwa” is a long-awaited, work-in-progress documentary film series by the acclaimed Ethiopian filmmaker. The project is an epic five-part work (totaling roughly 10 hours) that chronicles Ethiopia’s struggle against fascist Italy during the Second Italo-Ethiopian War (1935–1941)​. Gerima has been developing “Black Lions, Roman Wolves” for […]