Colonial continuity and the African film industry: A comparative political economy of structural reproduction

African cinema produces at scale and commands global cultural prestige, yet captures a fraction of its economic potential. The film sector generates only USD 5 billion from an estimated potential of USD 20 billion; piracy accounts for over half of potential revenues in two-thirds of African countries; Nigeria operates 68 cinemas for a population of over 200 million; and former cinema houses in Burkina Faso, host of the continent’s most celebrated film festival, are now market spaces. This paper argues that these conditions persist because the political-economic arrangements organising African film industries were established under colonialism and reproduced through successive institutional forms, including postcolonial state film companies, structural adjustment and digital streaming platforms, serving global capital at the expense of African producers and audiences. The colonial continuity thesis, developed through Mosco’s framework of commodification, spatialisation and structuration, provides the mechanism-level explanation for this persistence. Applied comparatively across Nigeria, Ghana and Francophone West Africa, three contexts selected for meaningful variation in colonial history, state film policy tradition and industry form, the framework reveals convergence that no country-specific explanation can account for, extending Ngwenya’s challenge to critical political economy by specifying the colonial structural logic that class-based analysis leaves unaccounted.