Africa was long the country ignored by cinema. Prior to the end of colonisation, there were very few opportunities for any African filmmakers; take France’s Laval Decree of 1934, for example, which actively banned Africans from filming their own realities. With decolonisation came cinematic opportunity, most notable in Senegal, where Ousmane Sembene, often hailed as the “Father of African Cinema”, weaponised film as a political and cultural tool. Sembène’s seminal works, such as Borom Sarret (1963) and Black Girl (La Noire de…, 1966), rejected Western cinematic conventions to explore themes of neocolonialism, identity loss, and social inequality.

Africa is now a diverse continent of cinema. From the Nollywood circuit, which revolutionised the global industry by pioneering straight-to-video low-budget filmmaking, to the film festival circuit filled with directors like Mati Diop, Blitz Bazawule, and Wanuri Kahiu.