Juliet Yaa Asantewa Asante

A very valid question above.

The National Film Authority of Ghana in partnership with Great Minds Group announced the Meta Cinema forum Africa. The first Cinema convention in Africa for Africa. In fact, the only cinema convention for Africa, period.

Africa is the most underserved continent with over 1.3 billion people having less than 1700 screens. Juxtaposed against Africa’s youth population being 40% of the global youth by 2030, this dynamic is even more bizarre.

Africans are great storytellers and Africans love cinema and Ghana was one of the first countries on the continent to build a film school and Studio. The National Film and Television Institute is over 40 years old.

The African proverb – unless the lion learns to tell its own story, the hunter will always be glorified.

Ghana, according to the Unesco report, is the second largest producer of content. Producing 600 films a years (I will argue that it is more than that) when juxtaposed to the population of Ghana, Ghana is doing very well.

Ghana recognized a huge gap and strategically went about helping to close that gap.

Streamers are paying a lot of attention to Africa, but internet penetration will have to increase for a real dent. Netfliks has just about 2 million subscribers, according to the Unesco report. Streamers are definitely not about to cause a revolution anytime soon, but what is good for the continent is the awareness and opportunity. Though when compared to Netflik’s investment in other regions; the investment of Netfliks and others to the continent is very small comparatively.

The Unesco report values the sector at $20 billion. Distribution starts from festivals, Cinemas, pay TV, VOD, airlines, free to air, DVD… A filmmaker’s ability to traverse all these channels is gold.

Central Africa with a population of 209m has 24 screens| East Africa, population of 494m – 249| North Africa , population 238 – 285 screens| West Africa at 501 population -292. Nigeria the outlier in the region – 77 cinemas and 237 digital compliant screens. The pandemic has further impacted the sector.

African nations need to strategically look at the opportunities and potential of the sector to revive our economies, create jobs, invest in content to tell our stories, feed the continent with images of ourselves to help us realign and grow, develop soft power and many other things. A reimagined cinema ecosystem will greatly ease the distribution headache of creatives, filmmakers and create huge opportunities for investment. It will open up an entire new revenue stream. Let’s welcome this news with open hearts ♥️.

Ghana has less than 20 screens! Whew!

I am filled with gratitude for the opportunity to promote this initiative. Well done to the National Film Authority of Ghana and the Great Minds group. Perhaps we may all go read Malcom Gladwell’s book – David vs Goliath

Namatse!

Juliet Yaa Asantewa Asante

META CINEMA FORUM AFRICA

THIS IS NOT A COMPETITION – IT IS A COLLABORATION