Great Lakes Creative Producers Lab Unveils Cohort of 15 Film Producers From Seven African Countries

The Great Lakes Creative Producers Lab has unveiled its 2026 selection of participants. Taking part will be 13 producers with fiction and documentary features in development will take part, as well as two observing producers.

The members of the cohort come from Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Rwanda. The week-long lab runs Oct. 26-30 in Kigali, Rwanda.

Participants get to work on their projects via workshops, one-on-one mentoring and peer sessions. The focus is on the creative, leadership and practical skills needed “to develop, finance and deliver films that compete internationally while staying rooted in local voices,” organizers said.

Four members will work with the cohort. They are Themba Bhebhe, who led diversity & inclusion at the Berlinale’s European Film Market from 2017 to 2024 after a decade in international sales, South African producer and programmer Tiny Mungwe, who produced the pan-African anthology Generation Africa and is a member of the artistic team of Locarno Open Doors, Namibian writer, director and producer Perivi Katjavivi, who runs Old Location Films and saw his feature Under the Hanging Tree premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam and became Namibia’s first international Oscar submission, and Neigeme Glasgow-Maeda, the first Trinidadian producer with a film selected at Cannes who also founded Luxembourg-based NGM Productions.