Sinema Focus, Akoroko, and What Kept Me Up Launch Groundbreaking Alliance, Securing Initial Funding

Sinema Focus has partnered with Akoroko and What Kept Me Up to form African Film Press (AFP), a groundbreaking initiative aimed at enhancing essential coverage and market intelligence for African screen industries.

Sinema Focus, founded by Jennifer Ochieng, provides coverage in East Africa with a key focus on Kenya; What Kept Me Up, founded by Ikeade Oriade, covers the Nigerian market; and Akoroko, founded by Tambay Obenson, offers continent-wide coverage.

Through this alliance, the three brands—while maintaining their independent and unique voices—are consolidating their efforts to strengthen coverage of African cinema and television, a landscape that has historically been underrepresented and underreported. AFP is also in the process of building a Southern African presence, with plans to expand into Francophone and North Africa.

To support these efforts, AFP secured €20,000 in funding to formalize operations and expand its current footprint. This funding was provided through the Moving Pictures Incubator, a 2024 initiative organized by Some Fine Day Pix with support from GIZ, aimed at addressing the challenges of distribution and audience building for independent African filmmakers. Participants, drawn from Kenya, Rwanda, Nigeria, and Germany, underwent a three-month training program that kicked off in Lagos in September and culminated in an investor pitch in Nairobi in December.

Two other awardees in this program include The Screen Connect—an initiative led by Nigeria’s Cassandra Onwalu, Kenya’s Selvin Marete, and Rwanda’s Mizero Kabano Yannick—that offers curated films and comprehensive marketing support to bridge gaps in distribution across the continent.

The African International Short Film Market (AISFM) provides a marketplace for discovering, promoting, and distributing African short films to a global audience, with a planned virtual launch event on 28 March. This initiative is led by Nigeria’s Gbenga Adeoti, founder of The Film Joint, and Rwanda’s Kagabo Nkubiri and Theodore Ishimwe.

Most recently, AFP participated in EFM Startups at Berlinale, where it pitched its new product, African Screen Intelligence (ASI)—an AI-powered platform that will provide key market insights for African screen sectors. The data provided by ASI will not only streamline AFP’s journalistic work but also serve as a key resource for filmmakers, distributors, and financiers, especially at a time when international interest in Africa is growing.

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