During his recent trip to Ghana, the famous British actor Idris Elba had a meeting with the president of Ghana, Nana Akufo-Addo, at the Jubilee House.
In the meeting, Elba talked about building a film studio in Ghana.
Additionally, he urged the president to implement policies that would enable filmmakers to thrive.
He mentioned further that he intends to shoot a movie in Ghana.
He noted that the lack of facilities has stifled a lot of film making potential. He also talked about how important it is for government policies to help Africa’s film industry grow.
The famouts actor revealed that he is currently filming a movie and would love to shoot some of it in Ghana.
Additionally, he informed the Ghanaian president of his intention to use this film as a proof of concept.
“It would be very beneficial for us to demonstrate Ghana’s openness to business and to announce this to the world: Here are the steps, the policies, and we actually have the ability to bring a film to our country, and we are going to put our money where our mouth is.”
Idris Elba was reassured by President Akufo-Addo that the Ministry of Tourism, Arts, and Culture is working on a policy framework to direct filmmaking in the nation.
He said that the Creative Arts Agency director will communicate to the Tourism Minister about the proposal and what the Ministry is doing to make sure there are no loopholes in it.
Elba said that he and his partners have done some groundwork to make it easier to build a movie studio in Ghana and other parts of West Africa.
The actor explained that, despite the fact that the film industry in Africa has a lot of potential, facilities are lacking.
As a result, he is certain that when the project is finished, it will be robust and competitive enough to convince filmmakers to choose Ghana for their projects.
“Currently, we call it West African Studios, but that’s a working title. We’ve been working on this for three or four years to raise a plan that puts a facility at the centre of African filmmaking. There’s a lot for African filmmaking, but the facilities are lacking.”
The well-known actor stated that the nation could have as many film studios as possible but without the policy framework, it would not attract filmmakers.
“We realized that policy is where the actual groundwork needs to be laid. We’ve studied the models of South Africa, incredible incentive packages, Greece, Morocco and these are all places where they realize the value of the filmmaking and they’ve brought that policy into play.”
“National Film Authority has done the work and put together a very comprehensive plan to propel Ghana into the forefront. It needs to be robust and competitive to the rest of the world. We believe for sure that Ghana should step up in terms of attracting those filmmakers. I’ve come and seen you and presented to you essentially, just the parameters of what we need to do.”
He also attended the Akwasidae Festival in Kumasi, in the Ashanti region of Ghana as thousands of people gathered to pay homage to the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu to mark activities for the occasion this year.
Idris, who is from Ghana and Sierre Leone, has always been interested in expanding the film industry in Africa.
He has appeared in films like Beast of No Nation and Mandela: Long Road to Freedom. In addition, Idris played the lead role in the entirety of the movie Beast, which was produced by Universal Pictures and shot in South Africa in 2021.
Source: Ghanaonline.net
