The African Film Investor Roundtable (AFIR), which took place from July 21 to 23, 2026, in Cape Town, South Africa. The event brought together 13 of the continent’s most active film investors with 11 producers from the African Producers Accelerator (APA) programme, for the first gathering of its kind dedicated to building a sustainable investment ecosystem for African cinema.
The inaugural Roundtable presented by Big World Cinema (SA) and the HEVA Fund (Kenya), was chaired by Steven Markovitz, CEO of Big World Cinema and executive director of APA, and Wakiuru Njuguna, managing partner of the HEVA Fund.
New platform for African film investment comes at a time as capital for the continent’s storytelling reaches a historic high.
Investors and experts in attendance included representatives of the Ford Foundation, Canex Creations Inc. (an Afreximbank subsidiary), MBO Capital, the Bertha Foundation, the Mastercard Foundation, South Africa’s Industrial Development Corporation and National Film and Video Foundation, Business and Arts South Africa, and individual investors including Tony Tabatznik and Wale Gbadamosi-Oyekanmi alongside experts Caroline von Khn, executive director of Oxbelly, and Erica Motley Dupuis, executive producer at Impact X Capital.
The programme also brought together expert perspectives in masterclasses spanning the film business from risk to rights. One session tackled how to de-risk the film value chain across the full arc from development through to distribution.
Another, walked investors through real-world case studies tracing a project’s journey from initial budget to finance plan to waterfall structure, drawing on experience producing acclaimed, award-nominated feature films.
A further session offered an overview of Intellectual Property finance in Africa, grounded in the perspective of a major international law firm with a footprint across more than 60 countries.
Steven Markovitz says, ‘It feels like a historic moment in African cinema with increased global recognition of the growing talent on the continent and increased availability of African finance for African film. The Roundtable was a unique opportunity to bring these forces together, and the results were beyond our expectations.”
‘The driving force behind the Roundtable was to bring together investors who already recognise African film as an investable asset class and create a platform for collaboration across the continuum of capital,’ adds Wakiuru Njuguna.
‘The most encouraging moment was seeing those conversations translate into commitments, with investors expressing their intention to co-invest and support projects from the African Producers Accelerator. That is the kind of collective action that will shape the future of Africa’s film industry.’
Momentum is building. Several investors at the Roundtable made financial commitments for co-investment, while others are actively shaping models for future partnerships. Organisers are now turning that energy into a concrete working plan to keep investors collaborating going forward, and the conversation won’t stop there: key talks and discussions will roll out online as a podcast series, giving audiences a front-row seat to the ideas driving the industry forward. Behind the scenes, producers and investors are already following up on Roundtable connections, and deals will be announced as they are signed.
Osahon Akpata, CEO of Canex Creations Inc., the intellectual property investment company of Afreximbank’s Fund for Export Development in Africa (FEDA), said about the APA: ‘It is an impressive group of people that have been put together. I see very investable projects from the different impressive group of producers who have come here, and I’m sure that they will get funding either from Canex Creations Inc. or some of the other investors who were in the room because they have very strong projects.’
AFIR is a first-of-its-kind gathering of African and international investors, financiers and producers dedicated to building a sustainable investment ecosystem for African film. Launched in 2026 by Big World Cinema and HEVA Fund, it grew out of the African Producers Accelerator (APA) and is co-chaired by Steven Markovitz and Wakiuru Njuguna, and moderated by George Gachara, Chair of HEVA Fund Board.
The APA and AFIR are supported by Bertha Foundation, Just Films/Ford Foundation, Creative Africa Nexus (Canex), National Film and Video Foundation of South Africa, with programme partner Oxbelly.
The next Roundtable will take place during the Creative Africa Nexus Weekend 2026 (Canex WKND) from November 5 to November 8, at the Wole Soyinka Centre for Cultural and Creative Arts in Lagos, Nigeria.