The film industry in Africa: figures and realities

According to UNESCO, 2021 report "The African Film Industry: Trends, Challenges and Opportunities for Growth", film and audiovisual industries in Africa account for approximately 5 million jobs and contribute approximately USD 5 billion to the continent's gross domestic product.

These values describe the situation as documented at the time of the study, published in 2021. They must not be presented as current figures: no equivalent update is reproduced here until a later official source is available.

The same report puts forward an estimated potential of more than 20 million jobs and more than USD 20 billion of GDP contribution. This is an estimate of potential, conditional on changes in public policy, infrastructure, training and financing.

Confusing these two orders of magnitude — measured situation and estimated potential — is the most common error in articles on the subject. AFRIK'ART FILMS consistently keeps them apart.

Still according to UNESCO (2021 report), Nigeria produces around 2,500 films per year, one of the highest production volumes in the world by number of titles.

The report also indicates that 44% of the countries studied had an established film commission and 55% had a film policy. These rates describe the state of institutional frameworks at the time of the survey and are a key indicator for any co-production strategy.