African Filmmakers Embrace AI Amid Infrastructure and Ethical Challenges at Durban FilmMart

Key facts

• The Durban FilmMart took place October 9–12 in Durban, South Africa.
• The world premiere of "Asiri Ilu Awon Osu" (Mystery of Osu Land) failed when user demand overwhelmed Docuth's servers.
• The film is billed as the first photorealistic, AI-generated feature film in the Yoruba language.
• Producers Mysterious Tech Studio apologized on social media for the glitch.
• The film incorporated roughly 80% AI-assisted scenes and 20% live-action scenes with real actors and voices.
• Kafilat Yusuff said the platform has now been stabilized and the film is available to stream on Docuth.
• Tamara Dawit cited systemic barriers such as high data costs, low broadband speeds, and payment-processing headaches.
• Zukisani Karabo Mabece said AI is "very biased" and "very Western," and his company built custom language models.
• Amilcar Patel warned that AI tools from the Global North could infuse foreign cultural biases into African policy.
• Samantha Kaine questioned how to use AI without erasing African identity.
• Earlier this year, South Africa withdrew a draft AI policy after at least six of its 67 academic citations were AI hallucinations.
• Next month, Cape Town will host the Africa AI Summit, backed by the World Bank, Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Nvidia.
• The Africa AI Summit is built around a billion-dollar AI initiative to accelerate AI deployment across Africa.