Category: The Latest

Ahead of the 2025 Cannes lineup announcement on Thursday, an Akoroko look back across 77 editions and more than 80 African features. This multi-part report draws on nearly eight decades of selections—tracking when, where, and how African films made it into Cannes, and what those patterns suggest. – 2010s + 2020s account for over half […]

The headlines were loud. But the real story sat beneath the surface: — Movement without real momentum— Increased interest without matching infrastructure— Emphasis on visibility, but low on clarity— Funding as both fixation and obstacle This Q1 Akoroko Premium quarterly assessment reads between the lines. Now you can also listen to it (7 minutes). FYI: […]

Global markets dropped sharply yesterday and today after U.S. President Donald Trump announced sweeping new tariffs on imports into the United States. This triggered immediate volatility in trade relationships across Asia, Europe, and, of course, Africa, where the fallout for film, TV, and digital media could be deep. This could lead to a structural shakeup […]

Building a successful streaming platform for Africa requires rethinking so-called Western models entirely. The winning platform will be mobile-first with offline viewing and telco partnerships to address expensive data costs. It must offer flexible pricing (possibly daily/weekly options) and ad-supported tiers that work with local economic realities, while investing heavily in original African content across […]

The newsletter, received by subscribers earlier this week—and includes a clip of Med Hondo in studio—brings attention to a lesser-known part of his career: his work as a French dubbing artist for major Black Hollywood actors like Eddie Murphy and Morgan Freeman. While Hondo is recognized by cinephiles as a trailblazing African filmmaker, he was […]

This is a comprehensive analysis of Funke Akindele’s feature film career that examines her work from her beginnings in Yoruba-language home videos to her record-breaking blockbusters. It breaks down her storytelling approach, production realities, market performance, and business strategy, while situating her impact within Nollywood’s evolution and assessing her long-term sustainability and influence. Readers walk […]

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 […]