EbonyLife and Logical African Partners Launch $50 Million Fund for African Films

EbonyLife Group and Logical African Partners have launched a $50 million fund to pay for African films, Variety reported.

The fund is called the Afro Film Fund. It aims to finance about 35 African films over the next eight years, which works out to roughly four to nine projects a year. Its first payments, known in the industry as disbursements (money released in instalments as a project moves ahead), are due in late March or early April 2027.

The deal was signed in Paris. French culture minister Catherine Pégard attended the signing. Logical African Partners is the African investment arm of France's Logical Pictures, a company that began working in the African market in 2024 with the launch of this vehicle.

A second thread runs alongside the fund. Mo Abudu has signed an agreement with France's CNC, the national film and moving-image centre that supports and regulates French screen production, to back a programme called Audiovisual Next Gen. The programme is an 18-month accelerator. It offers mentorship to 15 professionals under the age of 35, and Abudu will serve as its Global Ambassador.

Netflix, RTL Group and Mediawan are already among the backers of Audiovisual Next Gen, and EbonyLife has now joined them. The first group of participants will be made up entirely of women. Organisers expect to announce that cohort at the end of January 2027.

For most people, a film begins as a funding decision long before it reaches a screen. Money raised for development, script work and production often comes from a small group of investors, funds and broadcasters. Projects that do not win that backing never get made, so a new fund or training scheme can shape which stories are told years from now.

The Afro Film Fund's first projects, and the first Audiovisual Next Gen cohort, will show how the new money and mentoring are used.