Africa Is a Country

Africa’s Premier League

Africa’s Premier League

By
Africa Is a Country

The story of Africa's long-distance love affair with English football, told by fans in Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya & DR Congo.

A still from the teaser for "Africa's Premier League."

Africa is a Country is excited to present to you, loyal reader, the Kickstarter campaign for our very first full-length documentary film project.

It’s called “Africa’s Premier League,” it’s going to be a blast, and we’d love to have you on board.

Here’s the lowdown:

Africa is obsessed with the English Premier League. The continent may be divided by old colonial borders, thousands of different languages, and major cultural, political and economic differences. But Africa is united every weekend around the spectacle of English football. Love it or hate it, it’s one of the things that brings people together.

The everyday lives of Africa’s football fans are all different. Yet they share a long-distance love affair, with all the hopes, fears, joys and sadness that comes with it.

If it’s not Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame taking time out to tweet his views on his beloved Arsenal (or TB Joshua making “prophecies” about upcoming matches), then it’s the millions of ordinary Africans across the continent who are glued to TV sets in bars and bespoke viewing centres, from tiny villages to heaving mega-cities like Lagos or Kinshasa.

We want to show, in depth and detail, exactly how English football fits into the ordinary lives of African supporters.

Our film will tell the story of Africa’s passion for the English Premier League, through the eyes of the fans themselves.

If you love what we’ve been doing at Africa is a Country all these years — bringing you that fresh, incisive analysis of African politics and culture — you’ll love AFRICA’S PREMIER LEAGUE. We’ve never asked our readers for money before, but we need your support in getting this project off the ground.

AFRICA’S PREMIER LEAGUE follows four fans – in Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa and Congo – as they live through the highs and lows of a football season, and explores the overwhelming attraction of English football in Africa.

AFRICA’S PREMIER LEAGUE will be a feature-length documentary film, a web series & a TV series.

With your help, we will take our crucial first step: making a high quality short teaser film on the life of an EPL fanatic in Cape Town, South Africa. We’ll use that to win big backers and distribution for the full-length project.

To help us, go donate here.

  • Update: We raised £4,340, then the project went silent.

Further Reading

A power crisis

Andre De Ruyter, the former CEO of Eskom, has presented himself as a simple hero trying to save South Africa’s struggling power utility against corrupt forces. But this racially charged narrative is ultimately self-serving.

Cinematic universality

Fatou Cissé’s directorial debut meditates on the uncertain fate and importance of Malian cinema amidst the growing dismissiveness towards the humanities across the world.

The meanings of Heath Streak

Zimbabwean cricketing legend Heath Streak’s career mirrors many of the unresolved tensions of race and class in Zimbabwe. Yet few white Zimbabwean sporting figures are able to stir interest and conversation across the nation’s many divides.

Victorious

After winning Italy’s Serie A with Napoli, Victor Osimhen has cemented his claim to being Africa’s biggest footballing icon. But is the trend of individual stardom good for sports and politics?

The magic man

Chris Blackwell’s long-awaited autobiography shows him as a romantic rogue; a risk taker whose life compass has been an open mind and gift to hear and see slightly into the future.

How to think about colonialism

Contemporary approaches to the legacy of colonialism tend to narrowly emphasize political agency as the solution to Africa’s problems. But agency is configured through historically particular relations of which we are not sole authors.

More than just a flag

South Africa’s apartheid flag has been declared hate speech by a top court. But while courts are important and their judgments matter, racism is a long and internationally entrenched social phenomenon that cannot be undone via judicial processes.