Idris Elba said he’s planning to move to Africa to help “bolster the film industry.”
During a recent interview with BBC, Elba revealed his plans to move to Africa in the next five to 10 years. Elba, whose mother is Ghanaian and whose father was born in Sierra Leone, has already built a film studio on the Tanzanian islands of Zanzibar and, Accra, Ghana.
“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,” Elba said. “I need to be in-country, on the continent.”
“I’m going to live in Accra, I’m going to live in Freetown, I’m going to live in Zanzibar,” he continued.
“This sector is a soft power, not just across Ghana but across Africa,” the actor added.
Elba, who previously played Nelson Mandela in the 2013 film Long Walk to Freedom, said he wants to change how Africa is depicted on the big screen.
“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 colonized, how it’s just war, and when you come to Africa, you will realize that it’s not true,” Elba said.
“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,” he continued. “The world doesn’t know that.”
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