Six decades later, African cinema is still in its infancy when it comes to distribution and industry structures. Pioneering African filmmakers, including Ousmane Sembène, Djibril Diop Mambéty, Ola Balogun, Thérèse Bella Mbida, Safi Faye, and others, despite the financial and structural challenges they faced, started making artistically ambitious and politically conscious narratives that will be locally and globally celebrated. These filmmakers and their films defined the cultural identity of African filmmaking. Their films became an archive of socio-cultural and political topics. Written in local languages, their films aimed to decolonize the African mind and show the possibilities of demanding a working government. Funded by foreign cultural institutions and government, the pioneering African filmmakers made films that toured the festival circuit, won awards, barely broke the box-office,and were, importantly, inaccessible on the continent for African audiences.
It’s challenging to access accurate data on the box-office returns of some of these pioneering films, what isn’t debatable is the conversations they sparked about racism, colonialism, the realities of working-class Africans, and the need for revolutionary change. These titles include Oumarou Ganda’s Me, a Black, Jean-Pierre Dikongue-Pipa’s The Human Pyramid, Ousmane Sembène’s Borom Sarret, Black Girl, and Mandabi, Gillo Pontecorvo’s The Battle, Souleymane Cissé’s Yeelen, Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina’s Chronicle of the Years of Fire, Safi Faye’s Kaddu Beykat and Mossane, Abderrahmane Sissako’s Timbuktu and Life on Earth, and Balogun’s Ajani Ogun Black Goddess, and Orun Mooru and an inexhaustible list of others. But, despite their historic importance, they remain inaccessible on the continent. Contemporary African filmmakers are now suffering a similar fate.
To understand why, we need to begin with the past. The business of African cinema and distribution can be understood in three movements. The earliest film screening in Africa took place in Alexandria and Cairo. The first started with the Lumière Brothers screening their short film in Alexandria. The screening which took place at one of the halls of the Toussoun Bourse (the Café Zawani) inspired Alexandrians interest in cinema and prompted filmic activities. By 1897, the first dedicated theater, Cinématographe Lumière, opened in Alexandria in Mahatet Misr Street (Rue de la Gare du Caire). The second wave happened when an unnamed magician stole one of the “theatregraph” projectors from the Alhambra Palace theatre in London, migrated to South Africa, and introduced motion pictures to South Africans. The third was in 1903, in Nigeria, when the screening of Wole Soyinka’s Kongi’s Harvest occurred at Glover Memorial Hall. Importantly, the mobile cinemas tour of Dakar and surrounding villages contributed to these waves.
The cinema business developed rapidly on the continent. Thus, when the first generation of post-independence African directors began making films in the 1960s, the landscape was surprisingly robust in terms of the number of films, but hollow in terms of ownership and curating of African titles. Unlike the rest of the continent, Egypt developed its own massive studio system (Studio Misr, founded in 1935) even if the very first screenings were imported. In South Africa, British films and American Westerns dominated the screens. In Nigeria, cinema didn’t start in a vacuum; it was an extension of colonial rule. The cinema was dominated by the Colonial Film Unit (CFU). Ditto Dakar, where French educational documentaries were popular. Because Africans weren’t allowed to film themselves and others were hindered by financial and infrastructure hurdles, a non-racist and truthful portrayal of Africans was rare.
According to colonial records and UNESCO reports, Egypt, by the 1950s, had over 350 cinemas, Algeria had about 150–200 cinemas (mostly French-owned), Nigeria boasts of 60–80 cinemas (concentrated in Lagos, Ibadan, and Kano), and South Africa has hundreds of Bioscopes, though strictly segregated under Apartheid. An estimated 2000 permanent cinema screens existed on the continent. Despite this huge number, the cinema distributes and shows foreign titles. In Francophone Africa, two French companies—COMACICO and SECMA—owned and controlled almost every theater and distribution line. They preferred cheap American Westerns, Indian Musicals, and Chinese Kung-Fu and dictated what African filmmakers should and shouldn’t do. In 1960, when Mali attempted to leave the CFA Franc, it faced severe sanctions from the French government. Reflecting this in the realm of cinema, Upper Volta(now Burkina Faso) attempted to nationalize their cinema industry in 1969. COMACICO and SECMA responded by pulling distribution and boycotting the nation from its distribution line. The country now controlled the screens but there were no films to fill them.
There was also the Laval Decree, effective from 1934 to 1960 that banned Africans from filming in their own countries without a permit for decades. This meant that when independence came in the 60s, there was no business infrastructure for locals—only for French distributors. Additionally, the presence of these cinemas at designated European quarters meant the average African was structurally and architecturally isolated from watching and appreciating cinema. These architectural, structural and institutional hurdles made it impossible for Africans to watch African films and for African filmmakers to find distribution on the continent.
By the late 80s to early 90s, African cinema experienced one of its most tragic chapters, as churches took over cinema halls. The economic downturns triggered by currency devaluations, the increase in imports of film reels and projector spare parts,and economic hardship made it difficult for most Africans to afford cinema tickets. The business of cinema collapsed, leaving a vacuum that African filmmakers, distributors, and audiences are still trying to fill today. The loss of these cinema halls led to cinema shifting from a communal, public ritual to a private, domestic one with the VCD boom in Nigeria. When cinema finally returned in the mid-2000s, it was housed in luxury malls. This moved cinema away from the neighborhood into the elite spaces, which is why many Africans today feel the cinema “isn’t for them.”
It’s fitting to say that, due to the highlighted economic, political, and historical limitations, Africans haven’t really had a cinema culture. There have been fragments of it. But, the economic and architectural structures to make one exist are non-existent and fragmented. This explains why Africans don’t passionately watch African films even if they want to. It also explains why, despite the popularity of Hollywood titles on the continent, the same can’t be said for African films. It’s easier to watch a film shot and produced in Hollywood than it is for a Zimbabwean to legally access Nigeria or Kenyan titles. The distribution infrastructure doesn’t exist yet, even if pan-African initiatives like Screen Connect are trying to solve this.
Three decades ago, Sembene was quizzed about African filmmakers’ films at Cannes in 1991. The director recognized the historical importance of African cinema presence at the festival but decried how inaccessible the films will become. Distribution and imperialism were of more importance to him. “Unfortunately, how many of those films will be seen in our countries, and even in the respective countries of the productions? We continue expending energy on Europe, instead of diverting it toward Africa. Within that new dynamic the neo-colonial spirit controls cinema. Our French partners, in particular, inject money, but contracts offered trap our young filmmakers. Our film industry is being organised through the French-speaking community. Is it not time for us to draw the attention of the youngest to think about what they can do to help distribute our films, especially in our countries for the benefit of our public?”
This is still the reality of the average African filmmaker, regardless of whether they belong to the indie or mainstream arm of the film industry. They all have to find distribution. The two global streamers have reduced their business on the continent. Showmax has been shut down. The African independent filmmaker is in a tighter situation. The market has been trained to be suspicious of their offerings. Thus, unmindful of their international successes (think Mati Diop’s Dahomey, C.J ‘Fiery’ Obasi’s Mami Wata, Akinola Davies’ My Father’s Shadow), the box-office returns are often uninspiring. Because these films are often funded by Western grants, cultural institutions, and foreign governments, the ownership of these African titles are fragmented. The result of this is cultural imperialism and a case where, in years to come, these African titles won’t be seen by Africans because they have been locked in foreign archives for “safe keeping.”
Thus, when we argue why Africans aren’t watching, discussing, or championing African cinema in film-related conversation and activities, the above provides context. Africans want to watch African films, but the infrastructural gap is enormous.
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