When you hear the word “cinema” what countries come to your mind? There is of course America with its Dreams Factory in Hollywood. Then we have France and Italy, with their more artistic approach to movie making. You are probably aware of Japanese director Akira Kurosawa or you are familiar with the exploits of Godzilla. Chances are you have seen a martial arts movie from Hong Kong or fabulous musical from India. But there is one part of the world that’s almost always ignored in this discussion, and that is Africa. Many people are not even aware that African movie industry exist, let alone how productive it is!  Main purpose of this blog is to correct this misconception.

What do we need to make a movie?

• Budget – making movies is not cheap. We need money to purchase equipment, hire actors and pay our crew. Before digital cameras you also needed to buy rolls of tape which increased the production budget and made mistake very costly.
• Audience – film industry is a business. We need someone who will purchase movie tickets or buy the DVDs. If people have to make a choice between buying a sandwich or going to the cinema, food will always win.

Those are the reasons why making movies in poor regions, such as Africa is extremely difficult. And yet despite all of those hardships many fascinating movies have been made on this continent. This blog is dedicated to celebration of African directors, who despite not having money and proper equipment prevailed and succeeded thanks to their talents and artistic visions.