From Lagos to LA: Editi Talks Big at Milken Institute

The year is 2024, the location is Los Angeles. Our man Editi Effiong is up on the big stage at the Milken Institute Global Conference 2024; he’s headlining a conversation with a hall full of learners, filmmakers, investors, and people brimming with creativity.

What does he want? To take all their money! No, but really, he’s talking “investment in Africa’s creative economy.”

Everyone in the storytelling business knows that filmmaking is more than just the click of a camera and the burst of light. It’s infrastructure. It’s investment. It’s the building of pipelines through which African stories can flow and meet world-class standards. That’s the dream we’re chasing.

Now, for anyone who still thinks film is just “lights, camera, action,” Editi had a reality check ready. Making movies in Africa, he said, isn’t only about the magic on screen; it’s about laying tracks for an entire industry.

“We’re not just making films. We’re building rail tracks,” Editi told the crowd.

In plain English: if Africa’s stories are going to travel the world, we need serious investment vehicles to carry them.

But let’s rewind to 2023 for a second. The Black Book landed on Netflix and didn’t just perform — it made history. Not just “okay-that’s-another-movie” history. The kind that echoes.

The Black Book became the most-viewed African film on Netflix and roared into the Top 10 globally.

That wasn’t luck. That was structure. Years of planning. The effort of nearly 1,000 local creatives. Investment in new tech. Guts, brains, a thousand cups of coffee, and a whole lot of belief that African stories don’t just belong in the global conversation — they can lead it.

Or as Editi put it:

“We didn’t just greenlight stories. We greenlit structure.”

And the sweet part? The Black Book was unapologetically African. Written here. Shot here. Told through Nigerian hands and eyes.

Mic drop.

We can’t fade to black without dropping some of Editi’s sharpest lines from the panel. Here are three truths worth holding on to:

• “Hollywood is not going to wait for us to catch up.” — We’ve got to move, push boundaries, and shape the world of film we want to see.
  
• “For our stories to truly compete, we must do the hard work of raising our levels by ourselves.” — We’ve got to raise the bar, do the hard, smart, creative work, and deliver the results we want.
  
• “If we keep waiting for someone else to validate our industry, we’ll never build it.” — Waiting for fruit to fall risks it rotting on the tree. We’ve got to climb up and pick it ourselves.
  

Call it tough love, but really it was a call to action: a call to African creators, studios, and investors to stop dreaming small and start shooting big.

At Anakle Films, we’ve always believed this: Africa doesn’t need permission slips to tell its stories. What we need are strong platforms and solid systems to take them further.

That’s why the Milken conversation felt like home. Jobs. Distribution. IP ownership. Generational wealth through storytelling. This isn’t just theory. This is the business plan.

And here’s the bigger picture: Editi wasn’t only representing Anakle Films. He was standing in for every African creative grinding to push stories into the world — the writers, directors, gaffers, producers, dreamers.

Because this is what it looks like when Africa takes up space. Our creativity isn’t a charity case: it’s a business case. A serious one.

And when we back ourselves with the right investment, the right structure, and the right belief? The world won’t just watch. The world will pay attention.

The message to the world was clear: Africa’s creative economy is open for business.And if The Black Book was the trailer, just wait until you see the full feature.