A comprehensive view of 322 projects across 63 countries, revealing the structure, scale, and strategic realities of Africa's screen industries in development.
What began as a personal working list four years ago has evolved into a structured tracking system monitoring more than 300 African and African diaspora screen projects at various stages of development. This dataset now carries analytical value beyond internal reference, making it possible to ask higher-level questions about development geography, institutional pathways, and broader industry trends.
Distinct projects tracked across 63 countries, representing a large, multi-regional development slate by any global standard.
Feature-length narrative films dominate the pipeline, with documentaries (17%) and series (7%) following at a distance.
Production origin is unevenly distributed. A consistent feature of the pipeline is cross-border structuring—a majority of projects that move beyond initial exposure are formal international co-productions, most often involving European partners such as France, the United Kingdom, and Germany.
Projects with clearly identified development stage
List no funding amounts publicly
List no producer information
Among projects with identified stages, 130-160 are in early or mid-development, 35-45 in late development or financing, and 15-25 in production or post-production. The presence of incomplete information does not mean projects are inactive—many continue to circulate within development programs while financing is assembled and producer attachments remain unresolved.
Long-term tracking shows that some projects fall out of active development. This attrition is normal, particularly visible on platforms that introduce large volumes of projects annually. Many projects show multi-year gaps between initial selection and subsequent movement toward production.
Of projects with complete records have at least one selection at an African market or lab, either as their first entry or following an earlier selection elsewhere.
A small number of continental programs appear repeatedly: Atlas Workshops, Realness Institute, Carthage Pro, and Durban FilmMart initiatives, along with non-African platforms including Hubert Bals Fund, Berlinale World Cinema Fund, CinéGouna Platform, Red Sea, Doha, and Sundance Institute Labs.
These institutions provide structured development support, professional validation, and international visibility. However, they do not consistently lead to production financing, which explains why many projects circulate across multiple programs over several years.
Among approximately 250 projects with available synopses, recurring narrative themes reflect lived experiences where political control, economic insecurity, religious authority, and restrictions on movement directly affect how people live and make decisions.
Family, caregiving, and social obligations
Gender expectations in family and community
Life shaped by war, unrest, or political breakdown
Migration, exile, and forced or restricted movement
Direct state control, censorship, or repression
Most of the projects are single-character narratives.
High creative volume, particularly in narrative features. Financing paths remain inconsistent, producing long development cycles even for experienced filmmakers.
A balanced mix of documentary and fiction. Strong reliance on regional talent programs, with gradual expansion into international co-production.
The most stable transition from development into post-production once production begins, supported by established post-production infrastructure.
Accounts for 72 projects (22%), making it the second-largest regional contributor, driven primarily by South Africa. While the region offers more established development and technical infrastructure than most others, many projects remain in extended development.
These projects tend to have more complete publicly available information and show quicker progression between development stages, often because filmmakers and producers are more familiar with European and North American funding processes, even though overall budgets remain limited.
This development slate represents hundreds of active projects, concentrated in a small number of regional hubs and shaped by cross-border dependency. Creative capacity is high. Execution remains uneven.
For programmers, funders, sales agents, and commissioners, the practical implications are clear: Early engagement at the financing-design stage has the greatest impact. Patience and specificity outperform broad scouting. Completion depends on aligned capital and sustained support, not on a shortage of ideas or talent.
This is the current condition of the African and African-diaspora projects-in-development pipeline, as documented.
This is not a static repository like IMDb. The list is rotational—projects are added when they enter development and removed once completed and circulating in the marketplace, most commonly via the international festival circuit.
Projects are drawn primarily from publicly announced selections: script development programs, labs, workshops, co-production platforms, and funding initiatives. A smaller number come from direct communication with filmmakers or verified public announcements.
The dataset represents only a fraction of projects in development across Africa and the diaspora—effectively, those with visibility within institutional and semi-institutional development ecosystems, not total creative activity.
This dataset remains for internal use only as we continue to perfect the model, with no immediate plans to make it public or subscriber-accessible.