Migration, or Japa, the Yoruba term for “flee”, has been a recurring theme in recent mainstream Nigerian films and TV series. These include Postcards (2024), a Netflix Nollywood-Bollywood production, Kunle Afolayan’s Ijogbon also on Netflix, Isioma Osaje’s JAPA! (2024) on Prime Video, Arie and Chuko Esiri’s Eyimofe (2021) and Dika Ofoma’s A Japa Tale (2023), a short film which can be viewed on YouTube.
Samba Schutte, a Dutch-Mauritanian actor, comedian and writer who was born in the Sahara Desert and grew up in Ethiopia, starred as the first Ethiopian character on an American sitcom—Hakim on NBC's Sunnyside.
The short animated education video “How Did South African Apartheid Happen, and How Did It Finally End?” won the Jury Award for a Commissioned Film at the 2024 Annecy International Animation Film Festival. Created by Egyptian illustrator Aya Marzouk for TED, the short animated educational video can be watched on the TED-Ed YouTube channel.
Following last year’s inaugural Africa Cinema Summit in Accra, Ghana’s president Nana Akufo-Addo pledged to approve a film tax incentive for the Ghanaian film industry. The credit was officially passed a few months later as a 20% tax rebate. The second edition of the Summit will run from October 7-10, 2024 with the theme “The Relevance of Cinema in African Communities.”
Binti, (2021) a Tanzanian drama film directed by Seko Shamte and co-produced with Alinda Ruhinda and Angela Ruhinda was the first Tanzanian film acquired by Netflix. The film, which follows the lives of four contemporary Tanzanian women, won Best Feature at the 2021 Zanzibar International Film Festival.