The Next Narrative Africa Fund (NNAF), the $50 million investment vehicle aimed at scaling film and television production across Africa and its diaspora, has unveiled its inaugural slate of development projects, featuring work from talent including Trevor Noah, Rapman, André Holland, Thuso Mbedu and the filmmaking duo Arie and Chuko Esiri.
The first round of projects — nine films and series selected from more than 2,000 submissions spanning 80 countries — lays out the ambition of the startup fund, which is attempting to position African storytelling as a globally investable sector rather than a niche cultural export.
Founded by former diplomat and media executive Akunna Cook, NNAF operates through a hybrid structure combining $40 million in commercial equity investment with a $10 million nonprofit venture studio focused on script development and early-stage incubation. The model aims to address structural gaps in African screen industries, where development pipelines are often undercapitalized even as creative output surges across markets such as Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa.
Among the headline projects is Beyond Day Zero, a South African action film produced by Trevor Noah through Day Zero Productions and written by Amy Jephta from a story by Toby and Kevin Schmutzler. The story centers on the daughter of a water tycoon who joins forces with a township gangster to challenge the powerful system that divides their society.
Another prominent entry is Innocent, a Lagos-set mystery from twin filmmakers Arie and Chuko Esiri, whose latest film Clarissa recently secured U.S. theatrical distribution through Neon.
British-Ghanaian filmmaker Rapman, creator of Netflix’s superhero hit Supacell, will direct and co-write an untitled political thriller set in Sierra Leone about a young soldier unexpectedly thrust into power after a coup. Actor André Holland is attached as an executive producer on the television spy thriller United States of Africa, set in Cold War-era Ghana, where a former soldier is recruited to build the continent’s first intelligence agency amid geopolitical intrigue.
Other projects in the lineup include the South African action drama Skunk, starring and co-written by The Woman King breakout Thuso Mbedu; the Nigerian sci-fi romance Bako, set in a near-future society where aliens coexist with humans; the Sudan-set historical drama About Love & September Laws from the writers of the Cannes-winning Goodbye Julia; and the genre-bending musical fantasy Jollof Wars, which imagines a magical culinary competition drawing on West African folklore.
Announcing the slate, Cook said the selected projects reflect the fund’s effort to back commercially viable storytelling rooted in the continent.
“From over 2,000 submissions, these nine projects from across Africa and the diaspora rose to the top because they are commercially compelling, culturally resonant, and globally relevant,” she said. “These projects represent over $60 million in production in Africa. By pairing world-class storytelling with key financing and data validation, we are shaping the African narrative, positioning it for global investment, and sustaining thousands of jobs and economic development across Africa.”
Cook launched the fund after a career spanning U.S. diplomacy and media policy, arguing that Africa’s creative industries — powered by the youngest population of any continent — represent one of the most overlooked growth sectors in global entertainment.
Over the past year, NNAF has been assembling the infrastructure to deploy the fund, including the appointment of a 13-member advisory board spanning production, finance, technology and talent management to guide project selection and investment strategy.
The organization has also partnered with Parrot Analytics to analyze global audience demand for African stories — part of a broader effort to demonstrate that the continent’s film and television industries represent what Cook describes as a “globally undervalued asset class.”
