African cinema’s global ascent continues to gather momentum, and this year’s African Producers Accelerator cohort reads like a blueprint for where the industry is headed next. Among the six producers selected for the 2026 programme are Mimi Bartels and Abba Makama—two creatives whose work has consistently pushed Nigerian storytelling beyond familiar borders and into increasingly international territory.
Announced during the whirlwind prestige of the Cannes Film Festival, the selection positions Bartels and Makama within a new generation of African producers redefining the continent’s cinematic language through ambition, experimentation, and global fluency. Chosen from 267 applications spanning 31 countries, the cohort signals a growing appetite for African stories that refuse simplification.
Bartels, co-founder of Anakle Films, has steadily emerged as one of Nigeria’s most commercially and culturally astute producers. Her projects, including Adire and Kambili: The Whole 30 Yards, both acquired by Netflix, demonstrate a sharp understanding of contemporary African audiences while maintaining crossover appeal. Her work exists at the intersection of accessibility and polish—mainstream without sacrificing specificity.
Makama, meanwhile, has long occupied a more experimental corner of the industry. Through films like Juju Stories and The Lost Okoroshi, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, he has cultivated a cinematic language rooted in surrealism, folklore, and psychological texture. His inclusion in the programme feels particularly significant at a moment when African arthouse storytelling is finding increasing resonance on the global stage.
Over the next three months, the selected producers will refine and present their projects to investors during an intensive development lab in Cape Town this July, before reconvening in Lagos for a second presentation at Canex WKND in November. The structure reflects a broader shift within African cinema itself: one increasingly focused not only on storytelling, but on infrastructure, sustainability, and international financing networks.
The accelerator has also expanded its institutional partnerships, with South Africa’s National Film and Video Foundation supporting the Cape Town lab, while Creative Africa Nexus—better known as Canex—will help facilitate investor engagement during the Lagos showcase.
Launched in 2025 by Big World Cinema in collaboration with the Bertha Foundation, the African Producers Accelerator was designed to bridge one of the continent’s most persistent industry gaps: access. Through advisory support, business development, and introductions to international financing ecosystems, the initiative is quietly shaping the future architecture of African film production.
For Bartels and Makama, the selection represents more than career advancement. It marks another signal that African cinema is no longer waiting for permission to occupy global cultural space. It is already there—evolving, expanding, and increasingly impossible to ignore.
