I am excited or should I say enthused as the most excitable person about the film studio Idris Elba has planned for Ghana on a number of levels. I will number those levels so that the reader can compartmentalise as they see fit, or just be impressed at the number of levels.
First of all, (or I should say ‘klenklen’ to use the language of the heritage Idris Elba and I share. This is not just to show off that Idris Elba is my kinsman but it will become important in a few levels.) I am excited Personally. I moved back to Ghana in 2013 and most people still think I’m crazy – including those who moved back themselves!
And now here is a global superstar, a millionaire in dollars, Euros and Pounds Sterling and who literally could be anywhere in the world or outside of it (yes I am speaking of Valhalla from Thor film and the Alien prequel Mr Elba has starred in) and he has chosen our self-same Ghana. Not just Ghana (and here’s the second level!) but a project adjacent to what I do as a writer – the building and opening of a film studio – again in our self-same Ghana.
A studio is excellent news for writers. Even though the Netflix experiments in Africa ended with their recent exit (as did Amazon, who really didn’t last long) their time here still opened up opportunities and the possibility of the opportunities around writing, filming, distributing, acting and investing that is still being entertained on a limited basis. Limited can be expected. American streaming or on demand platforms were never going to liberate our creativity or enrich our cultures meaningfully. ‘Trickle-down effect’ and its synonyms should be a dirty term by now and that was the best the Netflixes could achieve if that. The solutions for monetising our arts were always going to come from Africans –of the continent or the Diaspora.
The third level of enthusiasm is that I’m a historian of a kind. The history I have researched and worked with has always been connected to my activism, my interest in Africa, and, more recently, my writing projects, even though I am not a full-time professor or museum curator or any of the other things you might think a historian may look like.
Most importantly here, Idris Elba’s studio is history is in the making. Yes, everything we do today is history, but the scale of an Idris Elba backed studio and it’s potential for seismic impact is history-history! There are what film studios look like and what the film studio Ghana wants in 2025 onwards and deeper than that - what the film studio Ghana needs should be. What a Gā Maŋtsɛ’s blessing has in relation with an environmental-social impact study to ensure Accra people are prepared for changes and contributions and cultural potential.
Fourthly, (and Idris Elba will get this as he is an actor-DJ-emcee) I am enthused with my third hat as an agripreneur. I’m not pitching my agribusiness, but the possibility that this studio will pioneer the use of construction and decor materials from sustainable materials is almost unlimited. The world needs an African studio for African stories but the world also needs structures and institutions that employ Africans and African materials and the philosophies of where and when our best stories are from.
Finally, (and there could have been more in all honestly but I am not happy with the word fifthly. I could use enumo and ekpa respectively because a Gā language lesson wouldn’t be a bad thing, but this write-up already has enough going on) the specific buzz has returned Idris Elba’s studio plan. His visit to the Gā Maŋtsɛ Teiko Tsuru I (to bless the film studio project) excites me as a patriotic member of the Gā people and a proud pan-Africanist. The many, many, many…many problems of the Gā people are a microcosm of the problems of Africa and its Diaspora. Solve one, you solve all –we show how all can be solved.
And that is the overview of all the reasons why Idris Elba studio has my attention. You have the picture –pun intended, so you can quit this article here, because from here we go for a deeper dive into all the above.
Smarter and better writers will produce stuff on Hollywood spiritual agenda stuff and how an African studio can combat this. I know my limitations. This film studio can be a big solution to problems most haven’t got names for yet so I might sound pushy from here on. It is really only me being proactive (like Bruce Willis helping John Amos create landing strip lighting with the burning fuel from an exploding plane), or when Geordi LaForge uses a scale model of a dilithium reactor to test repairs then transfers the learning to big galaxy class starship engines.
To prove the Panafricanist Gā status was listed last but not least, let me dive there first.
Land in Gā founded Accra is a serious issue. Like much of Africa land and our other resources went from community owned and controlled, to being colonised. In a short time. The disputes generated by the limbo (that much of Africa inhabits) between traditional and capitalist law. This means today every court in the land stays as choked as our open gutters. It constituted one of Kwame Nkrumah’s problems with indigenous societies like ‘Gā Shifeemo Kpɛɛ’ because the Osagyefo wasn’t able to reverse colonial lands settings fast enough.
This legal and societal chaos means Idris Elba’s studio presents a special and unique opportunity more contemplating the questions about the land assigned for the studio before the building even starts.
The opportunities as with so many of our dysfunctions, start by anticipating and asking questions that the we don’t hear before the angry court hearings in local languages. Where is the land allocated for Idris Elba’s studio exactly? Providing the model for ending never-ending land disputes and lobbying it would take would make not just Legal law precedent but true history.
Will this studio project blessing hail Teiko Tsuru amongst the pantheon of great and interesting Gā Maŋtsɛmɛi ones there have been Taki Komɛ, Tackie Tawiah, Nii Kweilai and Nii Amugi? If any uncontested land sits directly with the Gā Maŋtsɛ how can all the other land in court be liberated from the inter-generational fight. This would be a major peacekeeping precedent that can be rolled out across all the real estate developments. I’m intentionally not translating the Maŋtsɛ role as ‘king’. The title actually translates into “Land Father” and how their roles have changed needs essays of their own.
It stands to reason, and hope, that there must be undisputed land somewhere in the greater Accra region of Ghana. The rule that usually applies similar to how Malcolm X once put it “those who know wouldn’t say and those who say wouldn’t know”. However, that kind of anti-transparency doesn’t sit well with investors, insurance companies and we filmmakers like it does the scammers, money launderers and scoundrels amongst the chief and political class who feast on the confusion and chaos. It was exactly the same in the capitalism fuelled American ‘wild west’ with pilgrim’s homesteads, highways and trains. Ghana ‘landguard’ goons and muscle aren’t original so the growing animosity amongst diaspora and building and developer classes isn’t new either but has unique nuances to Ghana’s context.
So then, back to the topic on the table – films. I am passionate about writing, but an Idris Elba studio in Ghana is also the perfect vehicle for questions, perceived relevance and the wider potential impact of a studio. We have all seen works out of Georgia’s neoteric film agenda and specifically Tyler Perry joints from that state. 50 Cent and Katt Williams are looking to do similar, and in Ghana there have been other film studio projects touted. Why those failed to fly so Idris Elba’s studio could run will have lessons for all of us. There are billions to make from the film industry –wardrobe, equipment, logistics, hotels etc., just to name a few areas that aren’t creatives to impress Gā people, non-film people and historians reading this. film is changing because of the above Netflix and other streamers. In terms of the past, Ghana has our fair share of old studios. How do we make sure the Idris Elba studio gets so much business that there’s enough of spill over for GTV and Unimac’s (previously NAFTI) studios to get cleaned up for?
The cases of Ghana’s underused and neglected studios are a good transition to the Panafricanist Gā AND case for excitement. As well as the law and process Idris Elba’s studios can make, and the legacy Idris Elba’s studios’ films can build, there’s also the matter of the cultural kingdom an Idris Elba studio can and must be. I say must not to be pious, but the intentionality this part would take is an option Idris Elba chose to accept as a mission. What has gone before will be inevitable for a studio to be successful, but my ideation now is about the principle of the structure of the studio – principles Ghana has been ignoring and stigmatising for around a century. I say structure and I mean literal structure. What will the architecture of an Idris Elba studio look like and what materials will the structure be made of?
For approximately a century Ghana’s buildings have been governed by the sheer practical versus the desire to show status. Apart from a few exceptions (mostly commissioned by Kwame Nkrumah) or interesting compound houses resisting ‘modernity’, Accra buildings consist of:
Shacks
Multi business shop plazas
Excessive cement mansions
Bungalows
Nouveau town houses
Warehouses
Some of these are schools, offices, churches or homes, but they are mostly built with same ‘draughtsman plans’ repeated since colonial times.
They are all built with cement and other materials palpably unsuited for Africa’s climate. And sometimes there’s cladding, which is both a fire risk and isn’t authentic to anywhere. It probably is very expensive though, which makes it a status symbol.
They are bad for the climate, and have high energy demands in a land where sun is only thing there’s always plenty of, even as energy continues to be a problem because solar power hasn’t yet become the standard energy source.
Ghana looks like what it is – a neo-colonised land ravaged by globalisation and an education system designed to avoid teaching the revolutionary or critical thinking it would take to create a citizenry to solve its many problems.
If Idris Elba can pioneer distinctive architecture and utilise the climate friendly materials that are readily available, the Idris Elba frenzy can help alleviate flooding where newest developments cause it. Idris Elba’s studio can be to Accra’s urban ‘Say you’re building here because there’s no space anywhere else to build without saying it’ sprawl what the first asesei made from ‘Iive earth’ (called mud huts at the time). Disruptive but in reversing the popularity of cement which continues to prove itself counterintuitive in Africa.
In my twelve years back in Accra, my keen interest in creative interventions means I have attended many panels on sustainable builds and anything artistic in Jamestown from Jamestown Café (ran by honorary Gā of ‘inno-native architecture’ fame Joe Osae-Addo) and mostly Gā administered Chalɛ Wɔtɛ festival.
The upshot of it all is that neither a studio championed by Idris Elba nor a ‘write-up’ about a studio championed by Idris Elba should not just be about the film studio. This simple film studio could be a combination Cultural centre, a meaningful and long-term tourism attraction, a museum and memorial to the closed cinemas of Rawlings era, and at least try to include progressive education and training for jobs and businesses.
We want an end to silo thinking, and possibly an opportunity to knock down the badly built.
Forgive my excitement. Ghana’s leadership level is usually too in the mud for vision of this level. To misquote a recent political statement: We have the people. Africa has the youth [insert typical Economist x African influencer spiel here] heaving for freedom and a multi-storey icon of design, innovation, tech which doesn’t leave out history for the future. All with Idris Elba’s face on it but Ghana’s legacy benefiting