‘Mami Wata’ Director C.J. Obasi, ‘Khartoum’ Filmmaker Ibrahim Ahmad and More Take New Projects to Durban FilmMart’s Co-Production Forum — SkimNews
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- Durban FilmMart opens its 17th edition Oct. 9 with a four-day program anchored by the DFM Pitch and Finance Forum, where 35 projects will be pitched to financiers, sales agents, distributors and film funds from across Africa and the globe.
- The slate includes 8 animation projects, 10 fiction features, 10 documentary features and 7 series from 14 African nations, with 28 of 35 projects featuring women in key creative roles.
- "Ben'Imana" by Rwandan director Marie-Clémentine Dusabejambo, which won the Caméra d'Or and FIPRESCI prize at Cannes after being pitched at DFM two years ago, opens this year's market as its first-ever opening screening.
- C.J. Obasi, whose "Mami Wata" won at Sundance, returns to the forum with "Juju Soccer," an animated series about a youth soccer team transformed by a sorcerer's apprentice, produced by Fiery Film and Vortex Animation.
- "Bitter Wine" pairs Basque director Pablo Pinedo Bóveda with South African producer David Franciscus (behind "Street Trash") on a story about wine farm labor exploitation, neo-slavery and post-apartheid racism.
- "Hyena" from "Country Queen" and "Shuga Mashariki" writer Mkamzee Mwatela is an 8 x 45-minute Kenyan series about a producer forced to betray her principles to succeed with a trashy reality show, shot in an aggressive, surveillance-style visual register.
- The five-project African Producers Accelerator showcase, launched this year to connect commercially viable African projects with investors, includes Michael Omonua's "Galatians" and the Ghana-U.S. co-production "The Return" from Zoey Martinson.
Why it matters: With 28 of 35 projects featuring women in key creative roles and a slate spanning 14 African nations, the 2025 Durban FilmMart is the continent's most established co-production market — and the opening "Ben'Imana" screening is the proof: the Rwandan drama won Cannes's Caméra d'Or after being pitched at DFM just two years ago, giving financiers in the room a concrete case study for what the forum's pipeline can produce.
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