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The third edition of Jbx, or Joburg Xchange, an industry confab running from March 12 – 14 parallel to the Joburg Film Festival, looks to spotlight Africa’s role in shaping the future of film, television and digital storytelling.

With a focus on stories “made in Joburg for Africa and the world,” this year’s event “reflects the growing demand for African stories, innovative business models and stronger industry infrastructure,” according to Joburg Film Festival executive director Timothy Mangwedi.

The highlight is the Jbx Talks program, which gathers industry professionals from across the continent and the globe for a series of talks, workshops, panel discussions and masterclasses curated with an eye toward “equip[ping] professionals with the tools needed to navigate a rapidly evolving media landscape,” says Mangwedi.

This year’s event centers on six key themes. Firstly, it will look at ways to expand African storytelling on global platforms by examining how creators...

When a society starts banning books, it's a sure sign trouble is on the way or has already arrived.

When the Nazis began banning and burning books in 1930s Germany, President Franklin D. Roosevelt said, "Books cannot be killed by fire. People die, but books never die." Viewing the Third Reich as a threat not just to democratic rule but also humanity in general, Roosevelt added, "No man and no force can take from the world the books that embody man's eternal fight against tyranny. In this war, we know books are weapons."

It is now 2025 in the United States, and trouble has crossed the threshold and tracked muddy ignorance all over the nation's living room. What happens next is a source of profound worry for anyone who paid attention to President Donald J. Trump's campaign promises of prosecuting those who've challenged him in government and/or in print.

Martin Scorsese's "The Departed" is not the most important film in the director's oeuvre, nor is it his best (it's not even close), but it is one of his biggest commercial successes along with being the movie that finally earned him long-overdue Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director. A remake of Andrew Lau and Alan Mak's Hong Kong cop thriller "Infernal Affairs," the film did big box office business because it delivered chesty performances from heavyweight thespians like Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, and Jack Nicholson while trafficking in the kind of viscerally charged violence that's been a staple of Scorsese's mob movies. This one felt like it was strictly for fun, and it is precisely that. If you happen to come across it on television, you're likely sticking with it until the bloody end.

Given that "Infernal Affairs" was a massive success in Asia, you might...

Why Was Margot Robbie & Ryan Gosling’s Barbie Banned In Vietnam? ( Photo Credit – Instagram )

In a plot twist no one saw coming, Margot Robbie & Ryan Gosling’s blockbuster movie Barbie got banned in Vietnam just before its 2023 release. The culprit? The controversial nine-dash line. As per Collider, this U-shaped line, used by China to claim almost 90% of the South China Sea, is a hot topic, primarily since countries like Vietnam, the Philippines, and Malaysia all dispute it.

When Barbie featured the line, Vietnam didn’t have it. The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism slammed Greta Gerwig’s film, calling it out for showing the “illicit” line. It wasn’t the first time either—films like Abominable (2019) and Uncharted (2022) had faced a similar fate over the same issue.

But here’s where it gets interesting: Barbie wasn’t just banned in Vietnam. The Philippines was on the fence about the film,...