The 2012 film Nairobi Half Life was the first-ever Kenyan entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards. Directed by David "Tosh" Gitonga, the drama follows an aspiring young actor who moves from his home village to Nairobi to try to make it big but gets drawn into a life of crime. Its awards include Best Picture at the 2012 Kalasha Awards, Best Actor at the Durban International Film Festival, Breakthrough Audience Award at the AFI Fest, and Best Cinematographer at the 2014 Africa Movie Academy Awards.
Djibouti-Canadian film director and screenwriter Lula Ali Ismaïl is the first woman from Djibouti to produce a film, earning her the nickname of "the first lady of the Djibouti cinema”.
Pascal Abikanlou is considered the father of Beninese Cinema. His Sous le Signe du Vaudou (1974) is Benin's first fiction feature film and was restored in 2020 by the Cinémathèque française. The film can be watched for free on HENRI, Cinémathèque's free VOD platform.
The Egyptian thriller Flight 404 starring Mona Zaki broke Egyptian box office records for a female-led film when it was released earlier this year. Ghada (Zaki) is about to board a flight for Hajj, the annual Muslim pilgrimage to the holy site of Mecca to atone for past sins, when a sudden emergency requires a large sum of money, which she can only obtain by reconnecting with people from her dark past.
The South African neo-western thriller Five Fingers for Marseilles (2017) was enlisted as one of the eight "reimagined versions" of Western films American singer Beyonce drew inspiration from for her 2024 country music studio album, Cowboy Carter.