British actor to build film studio in Ghana

British actor, Idris Elba, has announced plans to build a film studio in Ghana following his meeting with Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo.

During his visit to the Jubilee House on Friday, February 3, 2023, Elba disclosed that the rationale behind building a film studio is to empower local and international movie producers to be able to produce standard and quality movies in Ghana.

He explained that although a lot can be achieved in the film industry in Africa, the region lacked the required facilities.

“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.

We realised 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 see you and presented to you essentially, just the parameters of what we need to do,” he said.

Idris Elba believes his project would help salvage the situation and act as a steppingstone for greater things in Ghana.

President Nana Akufo-Addo assured him of his administration support since the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture has embarked on developing a policy framework to guide filmmaking in the country.