Afreximbank launching fund to invest up to $1bn in Africa’s struggling film, audiovisual sectors

The African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) is launching a fund of up to $1bn to support Africa’s film and audiovisual industries, sectors that produce billion-dollar revenues but are plagued by infrastructural and logistical problems.

The two sectors together generate $5bn in revenues per year and employ five million people, a statement from Afreximbank cited UNESCO as saying.

But they have long been struggling with problems such as limited access to production facilities and to digital platforms, shortages of advanced post-production resources and insufficient infrastructure, the statement said. There are, for instance, fewer than 2,000 cinema screens in the whole of Africa, it said.

The emergent Africa Film Fund will be a patient-capital facility.