Lights, camera, profit: Why Africa must turn film into big business

African Film Industry has evolved over the years. [iStock]

I'm obsessed with the business of film. Not just the art or the storytelling, but the machinery behind it: the economics, the structures, and the systems that separate a film that earns applause from one that builds an industry.

Right now, whether people want to admit it or not, the traditional European and American film models are in crisis. Not because they lack talent, there is plenty of it, but because the systems that once protected and monetized that talent are breaking down. Cinemas are unstable, streaming platforms are cutting budgets, commissioning is shrinking, public funding is tightening, and audiences are fragmented and distracted. The old assumptions no longer hold.