Idris Elba intends to settle in Africa to develop local cinema

He is considering a return to his roots. Idris Elba, in an interview with the BBC on Tuesday October 22, declared that he would settle in Africa during the next decade. Born in London to a Ghanaian mother and a Sierra Leonean father, the British actor, 52, has always maintained close ties with Africa, and now plans to boost its film industry.

The star of The Wire et Luther already announced a few months ago the launch of its project to build film studios on the Tanzanian island of Zanzibar as well as in the Ghanaian capital, Accra. « I would definitely consider moving here. I don’t even consider it, it’s going to happen »he declared on the sidelines of a meeting of the film industry in Accra, while specifying that this will be done « in the next five or ten years, God willing ».

A major project

« 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 have to be in the country, on the continent »added Idris Elba, specifying that he will not commit to living in a specific location: « I’m going to live in Accra, I’m going to live in Freetown (the capital of Sierra Leone), I’m going to live in Zanzibar. I’m going to try to go where they tell stories, it’s really important ».

Idris Elba, interpreter of South African leader Nelson Mandela, in the biopic Long Walk to Freedomclarified that all this was done with the aim of putting Africans at the heart of its film production projects, so that the world has a vision « most nuanced on the continent ».

« If you watch a movie or anything related to Africa, all you’ll see is trauma, that we were slaves, that we were colonized, that it’s just war, and when you come to Africa, you will realize that it is not true, he explains. It is therefore very important that we appropriate the stories of our traditions, our culture, our languages, the differences between one language and another .»