There is something rather ridiculous about making a film, spending months or years getting it together, pulling favours from friends, convincing people to invest their money, surviving production, and finally getting the thing finished.

And then discovering that the hardest part isn't making the film.

It's finding someone willing to watch it.

That was one of the central questions running through a masterclass by Thabo Rametsi, actor, filmmaker and co-founder of 4Flieks, titled Building Sustainable Distribution Channels for African Audiences.

It was a conversation that moved beyond the usual romantic nonsense about filmmaking. There was very little about following your passion or believing in your dreams. Instead, Rametsi got into the mechanics of the business: licensing, commissions, intellectual property, audience behaviour, pricing, marketing, and the rather uncomfortable relationship between artistic ambition and commercial reality.

Turns out, making a good film is only half the job.

The other half is figuring out how the hell people are going to see it.

The film isn't necessarily the business

One of Rametsi's more interesting observations was how little the film itself can sometimes matter when it comes to getting a distribution deal.

Distributors want to know about your stars. They want to know your genre. They want to understand whether your story is compelling enough to hold an audience.

These aren't necessarily artistic considerations. They're commercial ones.

A recognisable actor gives a distributor something they can sell. A proven genre gives them an indication of what audiences might watch. A compelling story gives viewers a reason to stick around.

The film becomes an investment proposition.

And that explains, at least partly, why audiences keep seeing familiar faces in productions while emerging filmmakers struggle to get their work noticed.

The industry isn't necessarily asking who has the most interesting story to tell.

It's asking who can help make the money back.

This is where Rametsi introduced one of the most important distinctions of the masterclass: the difference between licensing and commissioning.

Getting paid today versus owning something tomorrow

Commissioning is relatively straightforward.

A platform or broadcaster pays a production company to make a film. The filmmaker gets paid, the production gets completed, and the commissioning party owns the intellectual property.

It's a legitimate business model. In fact, it's how much of the industry survives.

But there is a catch.

Once you've handed over the intellectual property, you no longer control what happens to it. You might not get to make the sequel. You might not get to license it elsewhere. And if the film becomes successful, much of that long-term value belongs to somebody else.

Licensing works differently.

A filmmaker retains ownership of their work and grants a distributor or platform the right to exhibit it for a specified period, often with certain exclusivity conditions.

That distinction matters enormously.

If you own the film, you can potentially license it to different platforms, territories or audiences over time. A film that has already been released doesn't necessarily stop making money. It can find new audiences, return to circulation and generate revenue years after its original release.

The intellectual property becomes an asset rather than simply a completed project.

And frankly, that's a conversation African filmmakers need to be having a lot more often.

Because there's a difference between building a production company that constantly needs another job to survive and building a catalogue of work that continues generating value.

Awards are lovely. Audiences are better.

Rametsi also challenged the industry's relationship with awards and recognition.

Winning an award is wonderful. Getting nominated is wonderful. Being told your film is brilliant by someone in a very expensive suit is wonderful.

But what happens the following Monday?

Are you getting more work? Are you negotiating better contracts? Is your audience growing? Is your film generating revenue?

Or are you simply back in the audition queue?

His point was that actual audience success gives filmmakers something awards alone cannot: commercial leverage.

When people watch your work, you become a more attractive investment. You can negotiate differently. You have evidence that your films can reach people.

Recognition might help open a door.

An audience gives you a reason to keep it open.

That distinction feels particularly important in a film industry where filmmakers can spend considerable resources chasing recognition without necessarily building sustainable businesses around their work.

The problem with selling African films to African audiences

Perhaps the most uncomfortable part of the conversation was the economics of watching films in South Africa.

A cinema outing isn't simply the price of a ticket.

There's transport. There's food. There's popcorn, drinks and sometimes the cost of taking an entire family along.

Suddenly, a supposedly accessible entertainment experience becomes an expensive afternoon.

And then we wonder why audiences aren't showing up.

Rametsi pointed towards a wider problem: distribution systems are often designed around assumptions about audiences, rather than the realities of how people actually live.

Who can afford the ticket?

Where do they live?

What are they watching?

What devices do they have access to?

How much are they already spending on subscriptions?

These aren't peripheral questions. They determine whether a film reaches an audience or disappears into the catalogue.

The industry has become very good at producing content.

It hasn't necessarily become very good at making that content accessible.

We don't have to copy Hollywood

This is where the masterclass became particularly interesting.

Rametsi argued that African filmmakers need to think about distribution models that make sense for African audiences, rather than simply importing systems developed elsewhere.

He pointed towards examples from Nigeria, where informal distribution networks historically helped Nollywood films reach enormous audiences. Instead of treating piracy as something entirely separate from the distribution business, some producers found ways to work with existing networks and monetise circulation.

There are complicated questions around rights, piracy and compensation, of course.

But the underlying lesson is worth paying attention to.

The most successful distribution system isn't necessarily the most sophisticated one. It's the one that actually gets the film to people.

He also referenced community-based screening models, where films were brought into local spaces and audiences paid to watch them.

It sounds almost painfully obvious.

Yet somewhere along the way, we became convinced that distribution had to involve a large platform, an expensive marketing campaign and a complicated chain of gatekeepers.

Sometimes, perhaps, it simply needs a screen, a community and a reason to show up.

Enter 4Flieks

This is the problem 4Flieks is attempting to address.

Rather than requiring filmmakers to wait for a traditional distributor or streaming platform to approve their work, the platform is designed to give creators a more direct route to audiences.

During the masterclass, Rametsi described a model where filmmakers can upload their films, set their own rental prices and earn revenue when audiences watch them.

The platform also aims to support filmmakers beyond the finished film, with opportunities to share scripts, treatments and access resources such as script development tools and funding information.

The idea is relatively simple.

Give filmmakers a place to put their work.

Give audiences a way to find it.

And allow creators to participate more directly in the economics of distribution.

What's particularly interesting is the emphasis on accessibility. The platform isn't presented as another subscription service that audiences must pay for before they can even begin watching.

Instead, the filmmaker determines the price of their work, while audiences pay to access individual films.

It's an alternative worth watching.

Not because it will magically solve the problems of African cinema, but because it starts asking different questions about who distribution should serve.

The audience is already somewhere. Go find them.

One of Rametsi's strongest arguments was about marketing.

Filmmakers often spend money promoting films without really understanding who they're trying to reach.

The assumption is that every film needs to be marketed through the same channels, using the same influencers, the same social media strategies and the same promotional machinery.

But audiences aren't all hanging out in the same places.

Some are on Facebook. Some are on TikTok. Some are listening to local radio. Some are attending community events. Some are responding to posters in their neighbourhoods.

The question isn't whether a particular marketing channel is fashionable.

It's whether the people who might actually watch your film are there.

Rametsi also challenged the tendency to rely on influencers simply because they have large followings.

A person with millions of followers isn't necessarily going to convince your audience to spend money on a film.

Sometimes the actor in the film, the community around the production or the people who already know the story can be far more effective at getting audiences through the door.

Marketing isn't about making noise.

It's about getting the right people to pay attention.

And ideally, to pay.

What does a sustainable African film industry actually look like?

The masterclass left me thinking about how often we discuss the creative economy in terms of talent, storytelling and cultural representation.

All of those things matter.

But a creative industry cannot survive on the brilliance of its artists alone.

It needs businesses that can sustain themselves. It needs intellectual property that retains value. It needs audiences who can afford to participate. It needs distribution systems that don't make access dependent on knowing the right person.

And it needs filmmakers who understand that the business of getting their work watched isn't something they can leave until the premiere.

That's probably the biggest takeaway from Rametsi's session.

Distribution isn't what happens after you make the film. It's part of the reason you make the film in the first place.

If we're serious about building a sustainable African film industry, we need to spend as much time thinking about how our stories travel as we do about how they begin.

Because there is little point in making films for audiences that cannot find them.

And there is certainly little point in building an industry where the people making the stories are the last people to benefit from their success.

CoLab Stories explores the people, ideas and infrastructure shaping Africa's creative economy.