Idris Elba on ‘Why I’m planning a move to Africa’

Elba, the 52-year-old star of the hit series The Wire, is behind budding plans to build a film studio on the Tanzanian islands of Zanzibar and another in the Ghanaian capital, Accra. London-born Elba, whose mother is from Ghana and father from Sierra Leone, has a strong attachment to Africa.

He hopes to use his fame to support Africa’s burgeoning film industry, as he believes it is vital that Africans are able to tell their own stories.

‘I think [I will move] in the next five or ten years, God willing. I’m here to support the film industry – it’s a ten-year process – and I won’t be able to do it from abroad. I can’t do it from abroad. I have to be in the country, on the continent’.

However, in the spirit of pan-Africanism, he won’t be committing himself to living in a specific place.

He hopes one day to make a film in his studio in Accra.

Mr Elba, who played the role of South African anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela in the biopic Long Walk to Freedom (2013), believes that it is essential for Africans to play a central role in the entire film production process. This includes not only in front of and behind the camera, but also in the financing, distribution, marketing and dissemination of the final product.

Nollywood imagines that, just as audiences around the world know the differences between the American cities of New York and Los Angeles without necessarily having visited them, they will one day have a more nuanced understanding of the continent.

Cinema is undoubtedly one of Nigeria’s most successful exports, with Nollywood producing hundreds of films a year. It also has a tradition, particularly in parts of French-speaking Africa, of producing high-quality films.

Previously, Elba has acknowledged the talent of the African film industry, but has said that the infrastructure is ‘insufficient’.

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UN’s cultural agency said that despite ‘significant growth in production’, film activity on the continent was hampered by problems such as piracy, inadequate training opportunities and a lack of formal film institutions.

According to Mr Elba, a virtuous circle can be created with the right momentum and the involvement of governments willing to create a favourable environment.