Gbenga Adeoti Is Making a Case for Short Films With Africa’s First Short Film Market

As one exists within the African film industry, it becomes clear that the existing systems often don’t serve one’s vision, talent or mission.  So, for many, the path to becoming a creative is inseparably intertwined with becoming a curator, shaping one’s own spaces and structures as much as stories.

This is the story of one Gbenga Adeoti. His journey to creating Africa’s first dedicated short film market wasn’t born from theory or trend but came from lived experience. As a filmmaker himself, Adeoti had long wrestled with the invisible walls that surround short films across the continent.

His turning point came in 2021, following a professional filmmaking course at the EbonyLife Creative Academy in his home country, Nigeria. Collaborating with colleagues, Adeoti directed and self-funded three short films; each produced to professional standards and with full crews, as if they were feature-length productions.

“We followed every industry protocol,” he recalls fondly as I sit down with him for this interview. “Complete crews, proper structure, and serious resource commitments. It was a full production experience but for short films.”

After production, however, the inevitable question surfaced: Where do these stories go? After all the effort, money and creative energy poured into the projects, there was no clear path for distribution, no viable platform to showcase or monetise them. “That moment was eye-opening,” Adeoti says. “It made me realise the system wasn’t broken, it had never existed for short films in the first place.”

This realisation sparked something larger: The Filmjoint, a platform Adeoti co-founded in 2022 to address the infrastructural and creative gap in short film distribution and recognition. “We set out to create a real marketplace for short films,” he says. “And our goal was to demystify the idea that short films have no commercial or cultural value.”

The Filmjoint runs two major arms: Filmjoint Premieres and Filmjoint Awards, both designed to give short films the spotlight they rarely receive. “Look at most award shows,” Adeoti says. “There’s usually just one category for short films, maybe ‘Best Short’ or ‘Best International Short.’ That’s it. And yet, there’s so much work happening in this space that deserves real visibility.”

The culmination of this vision came in March 2025, with the launch of the African International Short Film Market (AISFM).

Built on Filmjoint’s foundation, AISFM goes further, transforming advocacy into infrastructure and anchoring Africa’s short film community in something more far-reaching, lasting, structured and purpose-driven.

Created under the Moving Pictures Incubator, a 2024 film marketing and distribution program run by Some Fine Day Pix with funding from GIZ – which also birthed Screen Connect and the African Film Press – AISFM was co-founded by Adeoti alongside Rwanda’s Kagabo Nkubiri and Theodore Ishimwe.

Modelled after global industry events like the American Film Market, AISFM stands out as Africa’s first film market dedicated solely to short films, and a long-overdue intervention in an ecosystem where shorts are often sidelined. It’s programming is structured around industry-focused, access-driven programming such as speed networking sessions to bring filmmakers into one-on-one conversations with buyers, distributors, and platform executives in a format inspired by speed dating. There are also pitch sessions that aim to offer curated opportunities for emerging voices to present their projects to key stakeholders. And screenings that showcase a handpicked selection of what Adeoti calls “the best of the best” short films across the continent.

The first edition of the market is set to take place in Lagos, Nigeria, with plans already underway for a follow-up in Rwanda – part of a broader plan to rotate the market across African cities. This decentralisation is strategic, ensuring AISFM remains a truly pan-African space.

This is also the reason why its March 2025 launch happened online first, not as a compromise, but a conscious decision. Designed for the whole of Africa and its vast diaspora, the platform aims to serve filmmakers across the continent and beyond. Launching in a single country would have constrained the reach and diluted the impact it wants to achieve. The decision also aligned seamlessly with AISFM’s hybrid structure as a platform designed to operate both digitally and physically.

AISFM’s digital side is designed as a year-round marketplace where filmmakers and buyers interact directly. Filmmakers have individual dashboards to showcase their work, while distributors and platform representatives can access a dedicated viewing room curated for industry professionals. This is a solution, Adeoti explains, that aligns well with their stated mission of not just creating access or identifying the existing gaps, but actively building the structures needed to fill them.

Sustainability though, can’t rest on one filmmaker or organisation. It demands a wider coalition: government bodies, regulatory institutions, funding partners, platforms and festivals – each with a vital role in reinforcing the industry’s foundation.

Adeoti gives me a concrete example. In Nigeria, he’s currently in conversation with the National Censorship Board to create a more intentional link between short films and regulatory recognition. “Right now, filmmakers don’t see the value in censoring their short films, because there’s no clear incentive,” he says. “But if we can bridge that gap, build systems where short films are treated with the same seriousness as feature films, it creates a ripple effect. It legitimises the work, encourages better planning, and opens up pathways for funding and exhibition.”

Collaborations are one of the key intents of AISFM, and partnerships with institutions like the National Censorship Board are central to creating sustainability for short filmmakers. “You can’t do something like this alone,” Adeoti says. “Partnerships and strategic alliances are everything.”

The Filmjoint, Adeoti’s other outfit, is already developing cooperative relationships in Nigeria – screening standout short films with the help of several partners. AISFM will now look to scale that across the continent, with an even broader slate of collaborators.

Among the strategic partners already on board are institutions like Mo Abudu’s EbonyLife Cinema and CC Hub, who are co-hosting segments of the inaugural three-day event. The first two days will feature workshops, pitch sessions and networking activities at CC Hub, while EbonyLife will host the final day’s screenings with the market sessions being held at a dedicated venue and cinema space.

Across boarders, AISFM has already extended partnerships to global festivals, with the Durban FilmMart being the first major activation. In this year’s edition in July, Adeoti was a speaker at the festival’s Isiphethu program, where he introduced AISFM to an international audience. “We’re being strategic,” he says. “Not every festival aligns with our mission. We’re choosing to work with those who understand what it means to platform African stories on their own terms.”

One of the most persistent issues short films face, particularly in Africa, is what happens after the festival circuit ends. For many filmmakers, once their work screens at a few festivals, it vanishes into obscurity. There’s no clear pipeline, no structured path to distribution afterwards, and certainly no guarantee of audience.

Adeoti says AISFM is designed to break that cycle with a mantra of one platform at a time, one short film at a time. “Even if we get just one or two films placed, that’s a win,” he insists. “We are not about flooding platforms, we are about proving the value of African shorts, slowly but surely.”

He’s also keenly aware that the global undervaluing of short films isn’t accidental, it’s a legacy. He understands that this bias is rooted in decades of industry conditioning.

Film began as a short-form medium, but over time, the rise of commercial studios shifted that norm. As the business of cinema expanded, so did the runtime. Feature-length films became the industry standard, gradually equated with value – for studios, audiences and funders.

That shift still echoes today. Many producers and platforms remain skeptical of shorts, often viewing them as either proof-of-concept exercises or stepping stones to the “real” goal – a feature film. “You pitch a short and the first thing people say is, ‘Why not make it a feature?’” Adeoti says. “Not every story is meant to be stretched. Some ideas are best told in short format.”

This bias has shaped industry structures, especially in Africa where institutional support for short films is minimal and funding rarely trickles down to smaller projects. “There’s no market for what a market hasn’t been created for,” Adeoti says. “But once you build it, once you give short films their own dedicated space, everything changes. The value becomes visible.”

With Africa’s immense cultural and linguistic diversity, Adeoti sees a vast untapped reservoir of short stories waiting to be told. Take a country like Nigeria as an example, with over 500 languages and the immense cultural diversity they represent, the storytelling potential is huge. Yet much of what gets produced or gains visibility continues to orbit familiar terrain – Yoruba, Hausa, or Igbo narratives – while countless other traditions, voices, and communities remain unexplored and underserved.

 “There are a thousand things we haven’t told yet,” he says. “The stories are there. The talent is there. Now we just need to build the bridges, and tell these stories ourselves.”

For Adeoti, success for AISFM won’t be defined by fanfare or figures these stories generate alone. In the years to come, he hopes AISFM becomes more than just a platform, but an engine of change as well. “If this space can empower new voices, build careers, and elevate the value of short films across Africa and beyond, then we’ll know we’re doing something truly meaningful.”

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