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The Durban FilmMart wrapped its 17th edition on Oct. 12 with a boisterous awards ceremony that offered a fitting exclamation point to a four-day event whose rousing turn-out — with more than 1,100 industry delegates
in attendance from 56 countries — cemented its position as the leading lynchpin of the African screen industries.
The mood throughout the week was spirited, hopeful and determined — the biggest takeaway being, perhaps, that for all the disruption roiling the global film and TV business, African creatives see this as a moment of opportunity to unlock the continent’s largely untapped potential.
What to do about AI, how to elevate women’s voices and when the African market will find a way to monetize the current content boom were among the hot-button topics on the agenda. New funding models were mooted. Festival triumphs were celebrated. And the DFM’s influential co-production forum showcased what happens when a continent of 1.2 billion stands up to be heard. The range of stories and voices was staggering — and a heartening sign for anyone who believes that the future of African cinema is now.
Of course, challenges abound — even for the DFM itself, whose shift from its traditional July dates reflected the crisis in funding for cultural events in South Africa and across the continent. The sigh of relief from Durban FilmMart Institute director Magdalene Reddy was almost audible at the start of Monday night’s proceedings, when she told the assembled guests: “We made it. We’re here.”
This year’s event was as much about celebration as collaboration, defined by a spirit of togetherness for an industry that braces for the uncertain road ahead. “The Durban FilmMart Institute…remains committed to building the industry,” Reddy insisted. “Even when it gets challenging, we will endeavor to create a space that celebrates the work you do.”
As for its next edition, Reddy quipped: “We look forward to seeing you at the 18th Durban FilmMart. July. October. July. October. We will let you know.”
Here are 10 takeaways from this year’s DFM:
South Africa’s cash rebate “back in business”
After more than two years of almost complete paralysis to its film incentive scheme, South Africa’s 25% cash rebate is back on track, with Nelly Molokoane, of the Dept. of Trade, Industry and Competition — the government body tasked with administering the cashback program — telling industry reps in Durban: “The department is back in business.” Spurred on by political pressure from industry bodies rallying under the banner of the Save SA Film and TV Jobs Coalition, the DTIC has paid off most of the nearly 2 billion rand ($121 million) in unpaid claims dating back to 2024 and shored up roughly 1.5 billion rand ($91 million) in funding through 2029.
“The worst is over,” said producer Delon Bakker, who serves as chairperson of the Independent Producers Organization. But questions remain over what the incentive program will look like moving forward. After months of often contentious debate, industry and government appear to be engaged in fruitful dialogue — for now. Still, there’s work to be done to shore up confidence and reassure foreign producers that the rebate is back on solid footing. “It’s going to take some time to get that certainty back…and build trust internationally,” said Big World Cinema producer Steven Markovitz.
(Canal) Plus ça change
One year after the Canal+ Group completed its purchase of South African pay-TV giant MultiChoice, African producers remain in a holding pattern about what that acquisition will mean for the continent’s screen industries. “Everyone’s waiting for the Canal+ reorg to shake out,” noted one veteran South African producer. As part of its takeover bid, the French conglomerate agreed to a three-year moratorium on retrenchments, meaning it could be some time before the picture gets any clearer. But anxiety across the continent has been sky-high since Canal+ axed MultiChoice’s loss-making streaming platform Showmax earlier this year.
MultiChoice execs tried to offer some reassurances to local industry professionals in Durban, with content strategy head Renee Jacobs insisting “we are very committed to local” and head of scripted content Tebogo Matlawa adding that “in terms of local spend, we are exactly where we were” before the takeover. “We are open for business,” Matlawa said. But what that means for production spend and commissioning budgets across the continent moving forward remains to be seen.
Finance forum shows its muscle
Before its influential co-production forum kicked off, this year’s DFM opened with a screening of “Ben’Imana,” a moving, post-genocide drama from first-time Rwandan filmmaker Marie-Clémentine Dusabejambo, which won the Cámera d’Or in Cannes. An alumnus of the 2024 finance forum, the movie highlighted the event’s continued impact and reach, with more than 100 films — many of which premiered at top-shelf festivals including Cannes, Venice, Sundance and Berlin — getting a boost from the DFM platform.
This year’s edition again delivered, with a varied selection of projects representing 14 African nations — roughly 80% of which featured women in key creative roles. Though the projects spanned a dizzying range of styles and genres, the forum’s big winners — including a Tanzanian documentary about how patriarchy confines African women and a Sudanese road movie about war and displacement — showcased how African filmmakers still thrive at telling impactful stories.
African AI at a crossroads
AI has been heralded as a potential game-changer for Africa’s screen industries, leveling the playing field by offering local filmmakers access to transformative cost-cutting technologies. But a host of hurdles stands in the way of widespread adoption. “AI isn’t necessarily a magic pill,” said Zukisani Karabo Mabece, of Johannesburg-based media-tech and production company Digicine Motion Picture, which has leaned heavily into the use of generative AI. Even widely available technology faces unique challenges in reaching African consumers, from high data costs and low broadband speeds to payment-processing headaches.
Ethical considerations also loom large. “AI mirrors society. Society has a lot of systemic inequities within it, and those show up [in AI models],” said Tamara Dawit, of Ethiopian Canadian production company Gobez Media. “Those that are building AI don’t look like us,” added Samantha Kaine, of the Independent Media Producers Assn. of Creative Talent (I.M.P.A.C.T.). “The biases are already built into the AI systems.” As global tech, business and political leaders prepare to convene in Cape Town next month for a summit that will shape the future of AI across Africa and the Global South, African and diaspora creatives are asking, as Kaine put it, “what does it take to use these tools without importing someone else’s aesthetic or erasing who we are — erasing our own identity?”
Mo’ borders, no problems
Industry delegations from Brazil and Canada were out in full force at this year’s DFM, representing two of the 10 countries with which South Africa has signed co-production treaties. But the mood throughout the week in Durban reflected a shared desire for African filmmakers to collaborate across borders — with or without a formal framework attached. “The future is informal co-productions,” said Joel Chikapa-Phiri, executive chairman of South Africa’s Known Associates Group. Others echoed that call, citing the growing number of homegrown film funds and private equity investors looking to bolster the African cultural sector.
“We’re always looking to the rest of the world when there is money on this continent,” said Big World Cinema CEO Steven Markovitz, who alongside the HEVA Fund recently spearheaded the inaugural African Film Investor Roundtable, gathering top investors and financiers of the continent’s creative industries. “It’s much harder work, it takes more time, but we need to put more energy into that.” More energy, as well as a greater willingness to think outside the box. “We have to be creative entrepreneurs,” said Yanis Gaye, a co-founder of the pan-African studio Yetu (Un)Limited. “So the space that we are shaping has to be by different rules.”
Animators look for funding to fuel a toon boom
If you want proof positive that the African animation industry has leveled up, look no further than Angel Studios’ faith-based holiday hit “David,” which gave “Avatar: Fire and Ash” a run for its money at the box office last year and showcased the talents of South African animation house Sunrise Productions. It’s the latest example of African studios finding a place on the global stage, joining the likes of the pan-African outfit Kugali Media, which teamed up with Walt Disney Animation Studios to produce the groundbreaking sci-fi series “Iwájú.” “We’ve grown immensely. This entire industry has become better over the past 10 years,” said Anthony Silverston, a partner and creative director at award-winning South African studio Triggerfish. “But the future is still very uncertain.”
For the continent’s animators to truly spread their wings, they need a sustainable infrastructure that allows them to produce at scale. “We don’t have a lack of talent; we have a lack of opportunities to convert that talent into experience,” said Kelly Walker, academic director at The Animation School. African animation is stuck in a financing rut. Though local talent is abundant, there are few resources to develop homegrown IP. “Can an African IP…ever compete with the likes of Pokémon?” asked Kugali’s Hamid Ibrahim. “The industry grows when there’s something very profitable that allows the creators to create other things on their own terms.” On the plus side, the continent’s cartoon creators have certainly proven they can think outside the box. Could that translate to finding innovative ways to fuel an African toon boom? “I don’t know about the alternative models,” Silverston admitted, “because we’re still inventing those as we go.”
South African women in crisis
Nearly a decade after the #MeToo movement sparked a global reckoning in the entertainment business, South African women say their film and television industry is backsliding on gender equality. “Things are going back to where they began,” said Marion Seymour, of industry body Sisters Working in Film and Television. “Not only is [sexual harassment] not stopping, but it’s increasing.” This year’s DFM took place just weeks after the discovery of 11 women’s bodies on the outskirts of Johannesburg shocked the nation and sparked an outcry over gender-based violence, with Seymour noting that “women are more vulnerable now than they’ve ever been, because times are tougher.”
If there’s good news for the industry, it’s that South Africans are accustomed to women in leadership roles — the country has one of the world’s highest proportions of women in senior positions in government — and as filmmaker Kaona Letlape stressed in Durban, “Culture is not static. It’s ever-evolving. It’s up to us.” As SWIFT prepares to celebrate its 10th anniversary next year, Seymour insisted now is the time for both women and men to roll up their sleeves and find solutions. “I think it’s important in the context of the industry today and the challenges that we face that we don’t leave women behind.”
A rallying cry for African women in film
Against that backdrop, this year’s DFM saw the launch of a new initiative to push for gender equality at African film festivals. Spearheaded by the DFM and the Ladima Foundation, a pan-African body supporting women in the continent’s screen industries, Reel Balance is being billed as a “collaborative intervention” that will commit signatory festivals to aim for 50/50 representation both on screen and behind the scenes. Nineteen African fests have already signed on, among them Burkina Faso’s venerable FESPACO — the oldest film festival in sub-Saharan Africa — the Durban Intl. Film Festival, the Joburg Film Festival, the Encounters South African Intl. Documentary Film Festival and the Luxor African Film Festival.
The events pledge to push for gender parity for films directed or produced by women, as well as in management and juries and for participants in panels and workshops. “The fact that so many festivals have already signed the pledge is inspiring,” said Lara Utian, the executive director of the Ladima Foundation. “In partnership with these signatory festivals, we believe that change can and will happen and that we will see more African women represented both on and off screen in the years to come.”
African verticals lift off
It’s been a breakout year for microdramas, with a recent study projecting that the format will generate $150 billion in revenue in global markets outside of China in 2026. If there’s any doubt that Africa is poised to cash in, just look to Nigeria, where “Billion Naira Bride” — a 60-episode romantic comedy from creator Ifeoma ‘Oma Areh — racked up more than 25 million views in its first four days and has crossed the 80-million-view threshold in the two months since. The continent’s potential is great — but still largely untapped. “In Africa, we have the youngest median age on the planet. We have approximately 1.1 billion smart phones,” said Hlomla Dandala, co-founder of Hektik, which is billed as Africa’s first homegrown microdrama streaming platform. “It’s a new frontier,” said Pepsi Pokane, of production outfit Stained Glass TV. “What we need to do as a sector is work together to build a runway so that as we’re learning, we’re building an audience, developing an audience.”
To do that, African creators will have to work at scale — “The only way to create a vertical industry is volume,” noted Flavia Motsisi, of Both Worlds Pictures — and therein lies the rub. “We have not figured out monetization. That’s the truth,” said Motsisi. “We need to start thinking about how we get brands involved,” said Minnie Harris, head of digital verticals and markets at telecom giant MTN. But for now, African microdrama creators are excited to get in on the ground floor. “We are creating what African vertical dramas will look like,” said Motsisi. “We do not have to be emulating what the East or the West are creating.”
Unblocking the distribution pipeline
Some $3 billion has been committed to Africa’s screen industries in recent years, from rising private equity players — especially in Nigeria — to a growing number of public funds and investment vehicles backed by institutional giants. Creatively, the continent is flourishing, as African filmmakers receive worldwide recognition, scooping awards at ever more A-list festivals. Yet many are feeling the squeeze. “We’re really at a very strange juncture in the film industry, where at the same time as African film is becoming more prestigious, it’s also harder to make a living from,” said Marie Lora-Mungai, founder of advisory firm Restless Global and a leading expert on Africa’s creative industries.
The Canal+ Group’s shuttering of the Showmax streaming service earlier this year was just the latest example of how a distribution chokepoint is stifling Africa’s creative boom. But Africans aren’t sitting idly by, waiting for solutions. This year’s DFM saw a surge of interest in vertical content that can be delivered via the continent’s billion-plus mobile phones; the rollout of a new VOD service from African telecom giant MTN; and the launch of a new data-driven initiative, Watch in Community, that uses cutting-edge technology to “create a space where our local storytellers are elevated and have an opportunity to connect with local audiences,” according to Toni Monty, one of the product’s backers. Africa has never been so flush with homegrown content. The industry seems more determined than ever to build a market to support it.
