The documentary Downstream to Kinshasa (2020) by Congolese filmmaker Dieudo Hamadi is the first film from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to be chosen as an Official Selection of the Cannes Film Festival. The film follows a group of survivors of the DRC's Six-Day War of 2000 traveling to Kinshasa to demand compensation from the government for the losses they incurred during the conflict.
Mortu Nega (English: Death Denied or Those Whom Death Refused) is a historical film by Guinea-Bissau director Flora Gomes. Released in 1988, it was the first film produced in independent Guinea-Bissau and was the first ethnofiction film to depict the Guinea-Bissau War of Independence. The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival
The 2021 drama film, The Gravedigger's Wife was the first Somalian entry for the Best International Feature film at the Academy Awards. Written and directed by Khadar Ayderus Ahmed, the story of a gravedigger who struggles to raise money for his wife’s surgery was inspired by a death in his own family.
The short film Bazigaga (2020) by director by Joy Ingabire Moys was the first Rwandan film to be nominated for a British Academy of Film and Television Arts (Bafta) in 2023.
Kenneth Nnebue revolutionized Nollywood by introducing a pioneering concept: distributing its content via VHS (Video Home System), effectively bringing Nollywood into African households. Living in Bondage was the first film released through this system.