Our stories deserve an audience at home

Foreign applause can open doors. It should not be the only way a filmmaker reaches the people inside the story.

OPINION · THE DAILY PULSE EDITORIAL

There is a particular disappointment in hearing that a film about a place has been celebrated elsewhere, then discovering that people in that place cannot easily watch it. The story has travelled. Its closest audience is still searching for a screen. What does success mean if that relationship remains unfinished?

Our position is not that African cinema should turn inward. Collaboration, festivals and international distribution can create real opportunities. The question is whether we also build routes for audiences across Africa to discover the work on their own terms.

Discovery is part of the industry

UNESCO’s 2021 report on African film highlighted both digital distribution opportunities and the shortage of cinema screens. That report is historical context, not a count of screens in 2026. Its central tension remains a useful question: how does a film reach an audience that is willing to watch it?

An industry conversation focused entirely on production misses what happens afterwards. Subtitles, clear listings, affordable screenings and discoverable catalogues can determine whether a story finds its public. A film from Senegal should not feel inaccessible to a curious viewer in Cameroon simply because nobody has built a useful bridge between them.

Stop requiring one kind of African story

The continent’s filmmakers should be allowed to make comedy, romance, thrillers, animation and quiet stories about ordinary life. No creator should have to represent an entire country, much less the whole continent, in every project.

That freedom also requires audiences to look beyond familiar names. An Egyptian drama, a Congolese story or a Nigerian comedy should be encountered as a particular work, not examined only for whether it matches an outsider’s idea of Africa.

A reasonable objection is that limited budgets force distributors to prioritise audiences they can reach profitably. That is real. The answer cannot be to demand that creative businesses operate indefinitely without income. It is to test workable routes to paying audiences: local screenings, regional partnerships and digital services people can actually use.

We should also avoid treating every locally made film as automatically excellent. Viewers deserve quality. Honest criticism helps filmmakers more than compulsory praise does.

A healthier cinema culture combines curiosity with standards. It welcomes an award without waiting for one. The next time we say a film deserves more recognition, perhaps the first useful action is to help someone nearby discover it.