This article presents a theoretical case for the establishment of a Botswana Film Commission by examining the structural and institutional conditions seminal to Botswana’s film industry. Employing an assemblage approach and comparative analysis with film commission models in North America, Europe, and East Asia, the article locates the Botswana film industry in the context of a historical regulatory framework that continues to influence current film governance. It argues that the 1972 Cinematograph Act has lost sight of contemporary world practices of creative autonomy and cultural production, which have left the industry without the ability for institutional coherence and strategic expansion. The article conceptualises film commissions as active institutional assemblages that have an adaptation and territorialisation function in specific national contexts and proposes the framework of sovereign assembly that could serve the Botswana Film Commission with the conditions required to form it. This framework identifies four interlinked aspects: a constitutionally grounded mandate that is sensitive to economic imperatives of production and cultural performance; operational capacities that combine facilitation and curation; mechanisms to cross-culturally mediate and protect local communities; and a locational institutional position tied to African agency. The article contributes to the literature on film policy, creative sovereignty, and postcolonial cultural governance in the Global South.

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