‘Be bold and do it anyway’: Mo Abudu on her vision for African cinema
In an interview with CNN’s Larry Madowo, Nigerian media mogul and EbonyLife Group CEO Mo Abudu spoke about the importance of stories and the landscape of African storytelling.
Abudu has built a media empire across Africa, with a mission to give the continent a platform on the global stage. She tells Madowo, “For me it was just about ensuring that we have a voice.”
Abudu was born in London but calls Lagos her home. Now she's merging her two worlds with a new cultural hub in London to celebrate Nigerian and African creatives. She sees opportunity for Nigerian films in the UK – but only if they are given the right opportunities, “Our films are traveling across the continent but they’re not really traveling to the UK for theatrical releases simply because we don’t have the cinemas here that are ready to take those films on.”
She is intent on making African cinema a business that can deliver returns, and says capacity building is central to that vision. Abudu developed the $50 million Afro Film Fund, which will open at the end of 2025. She believes it can fill some of the gaps in the African creative economy, part of her vision of ‘completing the value chain’ of African cinema, “We’re training, you’re getting funding, your film is getting distributed, you’re monetising.”
Monetisation is the ultimate aim in Abudu’s development of the media ecosystem. She says, “If we don’t build it, we can’t scale the industry. If we can’t scale the industry, we can’t monetise.”
Despite her focus on the business of media, Abudu believes deeply in the need for more African representation in films and television outside of the continent, “It is time for us to wake up and realise that we need to push out.” She adds, “We have to tell our own stories. We have that responsibility to tell them and, as we tell them, they must travel.”
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