A film is not delivered until it is seen.
First light — the first print struck from the negative; the light a cinematographer waits for at dawn. FIRST LIGHT is the final stage of the ORAI pipeline: an annual festival where authored African cinema premieres as a numbered Official Selection. The Academy trains authors. This is where the world meets them.
Africa’s open-air tech theatre.
Local roots. Global reach. A minimalist, portable, futuristic open-air theatre for film, culture, technology, and community — inspired by nature, built for Africa, connected to the world.
The entire theatre ships in a single container — screen, canopy, seating, power. One truck reaches any city on the corridor.
A permanent number
Every film ever screened carries a sequential Official Selection number, beginning at #001. The count never resets — the archive is the institution.
Certified, not curated
Open to every African filmmaker from edition one. The gate is not enrollment — it is ST-02, the Authorship Standard, verified through a Production Bible. Selection here is a certificate of authorship.
One date. One corridor.
March 25, every year, without exception. The festival rotates along the axis we live on — Nairobi · Johannesburg · Freetown · Detroit — and it never skips a year.
The prize is a production
No trophy shelf. The winning author’s next short is made on the full ORAI stack, with the Academy’s team behind it.
One night. The run of show.
Step through the evening ↓
Doors, under the sky
One venue, open air. Cohort, alumni, applicants, partners, and press take their seats — forty to a hundred and twenty guests, under festoon lights and a Nairobi night.
One platform. Many places.
Every edition is local in one corridor city — and streamed to the continent and the world. Livestream, virtual screenings, a global community in real time. East. South. West. Connected.
