"Providing opportunities for French cinema in French-speaking Africa" is the title of a new report encouraging the development of the cinema sector in French-speaking African countries.
Undertaken under the auspices of the French-Speaking States Working Group, which is headed by the producer Éric Névé (La Chauve-Souris), this report was initiated on the basis of findings by the OIF (International French-Speaking Countries' Organization). According to these findings, 50% of the 220 million French-speaking people around the world come from African countries, a figure that is predicted to reach 85% by 2050, with a GDP set to multiply by 15 between 2020 and 2040 according to World Bank estimates.
Current indicators in this region are increasingly positive, with the emergence of a middle class with a growing demand for entertainment, allied with promising initiatives undertaken to update the movie theater sector in Sub-Saharan Africa, the development of telecommunication infrastructure, and the current expansion of the movie and television sectors. In addition to this, commercial initiatives in these countries are conducted under the supervision of French partners, which are in the majority of cases market leaders in their fields of operation.
However, the model to follow remains to be found, since the sectors of distribution, film exports, and even production must be rebuilt, considering that French-language films are currently largely financed by countries outside Africa.
Among the report's proposals and recommendations, it strongly supports the development of a "partnership based on the building of an ecosystem that is favorable to French-language cinema" via an annual transnational French-Language Film Festival and the creation of French-Language Film Meetings as a professional event that could be organized as part of the Dakar Summit held each year in November.
The complete report is available as a PDF attachment to this article.
Photo:
Jean-Christophe Baubiat (in charge of French-speaking countries at UniFrance Films), Isabelle Giordano (executive director of UniFrance films), Éric Névé (La Chauve-Souris), the director Laïla Marrakchi, member of the French-Speaking States Working Group at UniFrance Films, the actress Aïssa Maïga, and Alain Rocca, producer and co-founder of the Trophées Francophones du Cinéma (Francophone Film Trophies).
