25 July, 2018 - 08:04
Financing African films has always required equal parts imagination and hustle, and as the global movie industry weathers its own seismic upheaval from new financing and distribution challenges, filmmakers on the continent are learning to adapt on the fly. By Christopher Vourlias
That was the takeaway of a Durban FilmMart panel July 21, where Dayo Ogunyemi, an investor and founder of 234 Media; Chioma Onyenwe, a producer and the director of the Africa Int'l. Film Festival; Todd Brown, head of international acquisitions at XYZ Films; and Michael Auret, a producer with Spier Films, reckoned with the transformation in how filmmakers today are forced to do business.
The pre-sales market is becoming progressively harder and harder, said Brown, whose company was the North American sales agent for recent South African fest hits Five Fingers for Marseilles and Number 37, and is developing an adaptation of South African sci-fi novel Apocalypse Now Now. That model was effectively built in the 1980s. And distribution now is not what it was in the 80s.
New players, like VOD platforms, have so far had a marginal impact on African financing schemes. While citing brand partnerships and government funding as key sources of coin for Nigerian filmmakers, Onyenwe said most producers still finance their movies through a combination of personal investment, and loans from family and friends. Outside of the continent's most prolific film biz, the options are even more limited.
By African standards, South Africa has an embarrassment of riches, thanks to soft funds from the likes of the National Film & Video Foundation (NFVF), the Dept. of Trade & Industry (DTI), and the Industrial Development Corp. (IDC). For young black filmmakers, initiatives like the Emerging Black Filmmakers Fund, and the DTI's 50% rebate for black filmmakers, only sweeten the deal, while broadcaster M-Net pumps roughly R2 billion (around $149 million) a year into local productions.
Still, as ambitions - and budgets - rise, local filmmakers often find themselves looking for co-production partners overseas. Trying to make a film that's just specifically for this market, or for the African market which is hard to exploit is just too difficult, said Auret. The theatrical market here is very small for what films are made for.
He cited examples like the Berlinale's World Cinema Fund and Rotterdam's Hubert Bals Fund as key sources of funding for African projects with international ambitions; for director Etienne Kallos' The Harvesters, which premiered in Cannes' Un Certain Regard this year, Auret structured a complex co-production with partners in Greece, France, and Poland.
TravelStart Flight and Hotel Bookings
TravelStart Bookings for the Film Industry
Get More Film Business South Africa
Select your Membership
At the Berlinale earlier this year, Neil Brandt, of Fireworx Media, offered a case study on the ambitious South Africa-Brazil co-prod The Sound of Animals Fighting, a gritty crime drama by South African helmer Sibs Shongwe-La Mer. The producer told Variety that by looking beyond the usual business models that rely on North American and European financing, the film can give producers from the global south' encouragement that we can look to colleagues around us to tell stories.
Filmmakers in Durban this week can be hopeful that new pathways for financing will emerge. With the 3rd annual BRICS Film Festival kicking off in the coastal city on July 22, all eyes will be on how the trading bloc can strengthen its cultural output through co-production treaties. South Africa is said to be in the final stages of signing a formal treaty with Brazil, while talks with China are also in advanced stages.
There's also the African Continental Free Trade Agreement, which was signed in Kigali, Rwanda, earlier this year. Joining the 55 member states of the African Union into a free-trade zone that removes tariffs on 90 percent of goods, the agreement is said to include a provision for intellectual property in its second phase, according to Ogunyemi. That move could transform collaborations in film, TV and music across the continent.
Still, said Brown, whether they're in Africa or anywhere else in the world, successful filmmakers today have to learn to beg, borrow, and steal, and do whatever you need to do to leverage public money and soft money as far as you possibly can, and to get the market money down as low as you possibly can.
He drew on the examples of XYZ projects in Chile and Northern Ireland to show how directors working in small markets on limited budgets - challenges familiar to any African filmmaker - were able to maximize their resources by being realistic about [those limitations] and understanding from the beginning that what your film is worth and what your film costs don't necessarily have any relationship to each other.
He explained, Your film is worth what the market will pay for it. Your film costs as much as you can spend on it .Where things work on more contained budgets is when people come in, and they have an understanding of here's where my audience is, here's how I'm going to approach them, here's realistically what it's worth, and then they marshal the resources.
www.variety.com
Film Finance
Africa South Africa
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
25 July, 2018 - 08:04 
