Cairo financier brings African hub to Toronto after backing Cannes titles
Cairo-based film financier CANEX Creations Inc. took centre stage at the Toronto International Film Festival with its own African Global Hub, after chief executive Osahon Akpata travelled to Toronto from French President Emmanuel Macron's Lumière Summit in September, Deadline reported on 1 October 2026. The hub sat inside TIFF's new market. It put African projects directly in front of international buyers.
CCInc is a Cairo-based intellectual property investment and holding company focused on film finance in Africa. This was Akpata's second TIFF under the CCInc banner. He attended the prior year with Dust to Dreams, the Idris Elba short that was one of the company's first investments.
Its highest-profile backing so far is Clarissa. The first feature from brothers Arie and Chuko Esiri was selected for Directors' Fortnight, the parallel Cannes programme that spotlights new directors, and later screened at both Cannes and TIFF. The film moves Virginia Woolf's 1925 novel Mrs Dalloway to contemporary Nigeria and stars Sophie Okonedo and David Oyelowo.
Clarissa is set in Lagos, Variety reported in May, and premiered on 16 May at Cannes. It was acquired for worldwide distribution, meaning one company handles cinema and other releases around the globe, by NEON, according to a 19 February 2026 announcement from Afreximbank datelined Cairo, Egypt.
CCInc also stepped in late on Muganga: The One Who Treats. The French-Belgian co-production, meaning a film officially made across two countries, was lead produced by Paris-based Petites Poupées Production. Directed by Marie-Hélène Roux and executive-produced by Angelina Jolie, it stars Isaach De Bankolé as Congolese doctor Denis Mukwege, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2018.
The money arrived late. CCInc filled a budget gap at the post-production stage, the final stretch of editing, sound and colour before a film is finished. The film had been released in France and Belgium last year but had yet to open theatrically in other markets at the time of its TIFF industry screening.
The African Global Hub showcased six African works-in-progress, unfinished films shown to buyers to raise completion money. They included The Black Book 2: Old Scores, Last Week in October and Not God's Plan. The Black Book 2 is Editi Effiong's sequel to his 2023 action thriller The Black Book.
Akpata was among the funders who travelled to Cape Town for the inaugural African Film Investor Roundtable, Deadline reported in July. That meeting gathered investors focused on the continent.
What makes this stand out for audiences is the plumbing. Films reach screens only when gaps get closed. For fans, this means names seen on festival programmes now trace back to finance decisions made months earlier in Cairo, Cape Town, Paris and Toronto.
