Idris Elba has said he is planning to move to Africa as part of his plans to bolster the sub-Saharan film industry, saying “it’s going to happen”.
Elba, star of hit TV shows Luther and The Wire as well as films including Beasts of No Nation and Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, spoke to the BBC while attending the Africa Cinema Summit in Accra, Ghana.
Having previously announced plans to build a film studio in Tanzania, Elba said that his ambitions for developing African film-making would require him to relocate. “It’s going to happen. I think [I’ll move] in the next five, 10 years, God willing. I’m here to bolster the film industry – that is a 10-year process – I won’t be able to do that from overseas. I need to be in-country, on the continent.”
He added: “I’m going to live in Accra, I’m going to live in [Sierra Leone capital] Freetown, I’m going to live in Zanzibar. I’m going to try and go where they’re telling stories – that’s really important.”
The London-born Elba, whose father was from Sierra Leone and mother from Ghana, is enthusiastic about the possibilities for film-making on the African continent. He told the BBC: “If you watch any film or anything that has got to do with Africa, all you’re going to see is trauma, how we were slaves, how we were colonised, how it’s just war and when you come to Africa, you will realise that it’s not true.
“So, it’s really important that we own those stories of our tradition, of our culture, of our languages, of the differences between one language and another. The world doesn’t know that.”
Elba is also part of a consortium developing an “eco city” on Sherbro Island in Sierra Leone.