British actor Idris Elba is about to make a career and life change after announcing that he is relocating to Africa over the course of the next ten years. Since acting in storied films like The Wire and Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, Elba now has his eyes set on the increasingly popular African film industry. He is currently engaged with leading projects on the building of film studios both in Accra, Ghana, and Zanzibar, Tanzania, for enabling Africans to tell their own stories.
This is not business as usual for Elba, it is something personal. With roots in Ghana and Sierra Leone, he has always felt attached to the continent. He truly believes African stories have, for a long time, been misconstrued in global media. Other than the traditional telling of trauma, slavery, and war, he wants to be able to give Africa’s rich traditions, cultures, and languages their full due and help the world see what the continent really has on offer.
While Nigeria’s Nollywood is already making headway in cinema, as are parts of Francophone Africa, much of the industry remains bereft of infrastructure and resources, according to Elba. He hopes his studios will become a center for training, production, and distribution to help African filmmakers acquire the tools they need to go head-to-head with the global film industry. He thinks through nurturing local talent and investments in facilities, African cinema can become a global force.
Elba’s relocation is more than a move, it is a commitment to the future of African cinema on a long-term basis. Equipped with this passion and influence, he wants to change how the world looks upon Africa, making it a core player in the global industry of filmmaking and providing Africans with the opportunity for owning their stories and sharing those stories with the world.
