English actor Idris Elba, has said that he and his partners have done some preliminary work to help them build a film studio in Ghana.
The ‘Beast of No Nation’ actor said this when he visited President Akufo-Addo at the Jubilee House. Idris Elba explained that Africa lacks the needed facilities to achieve higher heights in the industry.
Hence, Idris Elba is convinced that the project, when completed, will be robust and competitive to attract filmmakers to choose Ghana for their productions.
“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.”
Idris Elba suggested that even though their plans are in place, there must be policies that would encourage filmmakers to make the trip to Ghana and other West African countries.
The actor explained that without the policy framework, the country can have as many film studios as possible, but it will 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 added.
President Akufo-Addo assured Idris Elba that the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture is developing a policy framework to guide filmmaking in the country.
He said the director of the Creative Arts Agency will go through the proposal presented with the Tourism Minister. This will ensure there are no gaps in the proposal.
