Caribbean-Africa Film Co-Production Era Begins

Where Stories Travel: The Caribbean’s Bold New Push to Co-Produce With Africa

A convergence of Caribbean, African, and diaspora film leaders is rewriting the rulebook on Global South storytelling — and the ripple effects for travel, tourism, and cultural identity are just beginning.

There is something quietly revolutionary happening at the intersection of the Caribbean Sea and the African continent — not in geography, but in creative ambition. Film and television producers from across the Caribbean, sub-Saharan Africa, the UK, Canada, and the United States are coming together to do something that major Hollywood studios have rarely prioritized: tell their own stories, on their own terms, financed and owned by themselves.

At the heart of this shift is a growing movement linking Caribbean media organizations with African counterparts through structured co-production forums, and the cultural tourism implications are significant. When Caribbean islands become the setting — or the creative home — of internationally distributed films and television series, they don’t just gain a production credit. They gain a global audience, a reason for diaspora visitors to return, and a powerful form of destination branding that no tourism billboard can replicate.

A Forum That’s Changing the Conversation

The Cross Continental Forum (CCF), hosted by CaribbeanTales Media Group (CTMG) in partnership with the University of the West Indies Cave Hill Campus, has been bringing together leading film and television producers from the UK, Canada, South Africa, the US, and across the Caribbean, exploring innovative ways to foster collaboration through the lens of the Global South. The forum’s theme — “Decolonising Co-Production” — sounds academic, but the practical ambitions are anything but abstract.

“We’re creating a space where Global South producers from around the world can meet on our home soil to together shape new models of financing, storytelling, and ownership,” said Frances-Anne Solomon, founder of CTMG and the visionary force behind the Forum.

That language — home soil — matters enormously. For decades, the Caribbean’s most compelling stories have often needed to pass through London, Toronto, or Los Angeles before reaching global screens. What’s emerging now is a direct pipeline: Caribbean to Africa, diaspora to diaspora, with co-production deals, shared financing, and distribution agreements that bypass the traditional gatekeepers of the Global North.

Addressing the equity gap head-on, Agnieszka Moody, Head of International Relations at the British Film Institute, acknowledged that the old models of production and co-production have disproportionately favored the Global North. The BFI’s participation as a supporting partner — alongside the Canada Media Fund and other institutions — signals that this isn’t fringe activism. It’s a structural renegotiation that has the attention of the world’s most respected screen funding bodies.

Star Power and Caribbean Roots

Adding cultural weight to these industry conversations is the involvement of Tatyana Ali — best known globally as Ashley Banks from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, but whose personal roots run deep into the Caribbean. Born to an Indo-Trinidadian father and an Afro-Panamanian mother, Ali carries the dual Caribbean and diaspora heritage that makes her a natural ambassador for exactly this kind of cross-cultural creative mission. A Broadway-trained actress, singer, producer, activist, and Harvard University graduate, Ali has long been engaged in conversations bridging the African diaspora experience across continents and communities.

Her involvement in Caribbean-Africa media conversations reflects a broader trend: when diaspora celebrities with genuine roots in the region lend their voice to storytelling initiatives, the doors to international audiences swing wider. For a destination like Dominica — the Nature Isle — or Barbados, where the CCF has convened, the association with globally recognized talent transforms a film industry forum into a tourism story.

From Barbados to KwaZulu-Natal: The Forum Moves South

What began as a gathering in Barbados has now evolved into a genuinely intercontinental platform. The 2026 edition of the Cross Continental Forum is moving to KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, in partnership with UMEDA — the economic development agency for the Pietermaritzburg Midlands — and South African production company Pambili Media. The in-person program runs from July 20–26 in the Pietermaritzburg Midlands, followed by sessions at the Toronto International Film Festival Market and virtual co-production labs.

CCH Pounder, the Guyanese-born actor and longtime CCF Steering Group member, is helping spearhead this expansion, describing it as an opportunity to “turn shared heritage into shared enterprise — creatively, economically and strategically.”

Frances-Anne Solomon framed the geographic evolution deliberately: “The Cross Continental Forum was designed from the outset to move between locations across the Global South. It is part of a long-term effort to build sustainable co-production pipelines linking African, Caribbean, and diaspora producers to the global screen marketplace.”

For the travel industry, this mobility is itself a story. Each host city — Bridgetown one year, Pietermaritzburg the next — becomes a creative hub, a gathering place for international industry professionals, journalists, and cultural tourists drawn by the intersection of filmmaking and place. It is the kind of soft economic development that tourism boards dream about: organic, authentic, and globally resonant.

Why the Travel Industry Should Pay Attention

The link between cinema and tourism is well documented. A location featured in a major production can see visitor numbers climb for years. The Caribbean has historically been used as an exotic backdrop by foreign filmmakers — think the Bond films in Jamaica, or countless luxury resorts as anonymous backdrops for Hollywood rom-coms. What’s different about this movement is authorship.

When Caribbean and African producers control the narrative, the island or city on screen becomes more than a backdrop. It becomes a character with history, complexity, and cultural specificity. Visitors who come in the wake of such productions aren’t just chasing a beach or a resort pool — they’re engaging with a place whose story they already feel they know.

Applications for the 2026 Cross Continental Forum are open to Black producers and producers of Global Majority descent from Canada, the Caribbean, Africa, the UK, Europe, and South and Latin America, with a limited number of bursaries available to support participation. The inclusivity of that mandate is itself a tourism draw: Dominicans, Barbadians, Jamaicans, and Trinidadians in the diaspora who might have lost their direct connection to the islands increasingly find cultural touchpoints — like this forum — that pull them back as visitors, investors, and advocates.

The Bigger Picture: Creative Economy as Destination Strategy

The economic argument for intra-African and diaspora co-productions is compelling: collaborations between African and diaspora filmmakers allow creators to share resources, combine financial backing, and access broader markets — while asserting ownership, agency, and authenticity in their work. Applied to the Caribbean context, the same logic holds. A co-production between a Trinidadian company and a South African studio doesn’t just create one film — it creates a relationship, a supply chain, and a reason for creative professionals to travel between two destinations that don’t yet have strong tourism links.

This is where the Caribbean’s tourism establishment has an opportunity that is still largely untapped. Film festivals, production forums, and industry markets are among the highest-value tourism categories: the delegates are typically well-resourced professionals, they extend their stays to explore the destination, and they generate media coverage that reaches exactly the kind of globally curious, culturally motivated traveler the region most wants to attract.

Barbados has understood this, with its tourism marketing body supporting the CCF since its inaugural edition. Other Caribbean territories would be wise to take note. Dominica, with its dramatic volcanic landscapes, pristine rainforests, and growing reputation as a sustainable tourism leader, is a natural candidate for hosting a future edition — or at minimum, becoming a featured location in the co-productions that emerge from these forums.

A Movement Whose Time Has Come

The convergence of Caribbean and African creative industries is not happening in a vacuum. Africa’s film industry is transforming from a purely screening-oriented ecosystem into a commercial hub — enabling international co-production deals, content distribution agreements, and partnerships with producers from France, Brazil, Germany, and the Americas. The Caribbean is the natural counterpart in this story: a diaspora-linked, English and Creole-speaking, culturally dynamic region whose stories have global appeal but have long been under-resourced at the production level.

What’s different now is the infrastructure. The Cross Continental Forum, supported by major funding bodies on three continents, is creating the relationships and the deal flow that make sustained co-production possible. When Tatyana Ali and leaders from across the Caribbean and African diaspora sit in the same room to talk about storytelling and ownership, they are not just making films. They are making the case that the Global South can set its own creative agenda — and that the Caribbean, that beautiful, complicated, history-rich archipelago, is ready to lead.

For travelers, the invitation is clear: come for the islands, stay for the stories — and watch those stories travel the world long after you’ve gone home.

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