DIFF 2025: Tambay A. Obenson Breaks Down What’s Next for African Film Festivals
- Sahndra Fon Dufe
- Jul 21
- 3 min read
African film journalist and strategist Tambay A. Obenson presented on The Future of Film Festivals at the 2025 Durban International Film Festival (DIFF), in a special session held as part of the DIFF Film Festival Residency. The event, curated by Andrea Voges (DIFF) and Fibby Kioria (Mucii Pictures), brings together African programmers, curators, and cultural workers for a weeklong program of case studies, workshops, and critical discussions on how film festivals function across the continent.
Obenson’s session was held on Saturday, July 19, from 10:30 to 11:30 at the Elangeni Hotel—it focused on the evolving institutional role of festivals in shaping infrastructure, funding, visibility, and policy across African screen sectors. The talk also reflected Obenson’s wider body of work, which interrogates how festivals, press, and policy are interlinked in ways that are rarely made visible.
"African film festivals aren't trying to become versions of Cannes or Sundance,” Obenson said. “They're solving different problems, including access, training, cultural preservation, economic opportunity. The future is already being built, but it's happening outside of the conventional systems that most funding and policy discussions assume. That's both the strength and the vulnerability."
In 2022, Obenson founded Akoroko, a subscription-based platform dedicated to daily research, reporting, and strategic analysis of African cinema, television, and digital media. Known for its unflinching focus on infrastructure and institutional behavior, the platform has become a go-to resource for funders, programmers, producers, and researchers across the continent and diaspora. Obenson is also one of the co-founders of the African Film Press (AFP), an alliance of regional platforms that includes Sinema Focus (East Africa) and What Kept Me Up (Nigeria). He is widely known for his earlier work as the founding editor of Shadow and Act, a platform focused on global Black cinema, which he ran from 2009 until its acquisition by Blavity in 2017.
“Festivals have never just been about films,” Obenson said. “They’ve always been about entryways, control, and visibility. But the stakes are shifting, and it’s time we talk more openly about what they’re becoming.”
Also featured during Durban FilmMart was Jennifer Ochieng, founder and editor of Sinema Focus, who joined the panel Understanding the Current Film Media Landscape, moderated by French-Burkinabè critic Claire Diao, who serves as Program Advisor for the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in Africa and the Middle East.
The session centered on the future of African film criticism, coverage, and visibility within regional and international conversations.
“This is the kind of conversation I wish existed more often,” Ochieng said. “One where we’re not just talking about films, but about the people writing, reporting, and shaping the dialogue around them.”
While Obenson and Ochieng appeared independently at DFM and DIFF, their presence reflects the growing public visibility of the African Film Press network and its regional efforts to reframe how African screen sectors are reported, analyzed, and documented—across borders and beyond red carpets.
These developments come at a pivotal time for African Film Press, which is set to formally launch in August 2025.
About DIFF
Founded in 1979 by Teddy and Ros Sarkin, the Durban International Film Festival is the longest-running and largest film festival in Southern Africa. Each year, it brings together local and international audiences, hosting more than 100 screenings across the region, including township outreach where cinemas do not exist. Past DIFF winners include Les Misérables, Riceboy Sleeps, Sons of the Sea, and The Wound (Inxeba).
The 2025 edition featured various curated works, from Aïcha and Danse Macabre to Ancestral Visions of the Future, Cloud Line, and Salve Maria, affirming DIFF’s commitment to diverse global and regional storytelling.
Follow The DIFF 2025 Program Here & Stay tuned for more @blackfilmwire
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