Idris Elba has agreed to play the lead role at the National Film Authority of Ghana’s second annual Africa Cinema Summit, which will take place in Accra from October 7–10.
Elba, a Golden Globe winner and chairman of the IE7 and The Akuna Group, is joined on the front row by Andrew Kofi Egyapa Mercer, Ghana’s Minister of Tourism, Arts, and Culture, and Fiona Lamptey, a former Netflix executive and co-founder of Juno Studios.
The Movenpick Ambassador Hotel in Accra will serve as the venue for the conference once more.
“The Relevance of Cinema in African Communities” will be the focus of the event.
Speakers will discuss how to advocate for movie theater investment, how to redesign the cinematic experience for Africa’s underserved lower-income viewers, and the current increase in local content production and consumption, according to the organizers.
Executives from the African diaspora and representatives of investment organizations like Afreximbank and IFC are expected to attend, in addition to representatives from African nations like Morocco, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, and Angola.
Elba told Deadline in a statement this afternoon, “Africa has been at the forefront of communication and storytelling for centuries, but sadly this innovation and the complex stories originating on the continent have been largely unnoticed.”
I am therefore overjoyed to be a part of the Africa Cinema Summit this year, where the focus will be on how Africans, both on the continent and in the diaspora, can raise the bar for the film and content industries and raise awareness of our rich, dynamic, youthful, and vibrant Africa on a worldwide scale.
Executives from the National Film Authority Tim Yaw Struthers, Moses Babatope, and Funmi Onuma are coordinating the Africa Cinema Summit in association with Silverbird Cinemas and Nile Media Entertainment Group.
Representatives from 20 African nations participated in the first summit last year, which focused on investigating and customizing cinematic prospects to fit the distinctive qualities of each regional area on the continent.
The area industry gained several strategic advantages as a result of the summit. Nana Akufo-Addo, the president of Ghana, promised to support the country’s film sector by approving a film tax incentive. A few months later, the credit was formally passed as a 20% tax rebate.
According to Juliet Yaa Asantewa Asante, CEO of the National Film Authority of Ghana, “collaborating is the only way to grow local content and increase the cinema offerings on the African continent.”
“The industry is still strong, with local content filling in the gaps in nations like Nigeria. The potential for the movie industry to flourish across the continent is enormous, and it is our job to turn that potential into something positive for African communities. I’m excited to greet our distinguished guests in Accra, Ghana.