Last year, the CEO of Ghana’s Film Authority, Juliet Asante, was displeased when an interview with Idris Elba by the BBC went viral without a mention of her event, the Africa Cinema Summit, aka the very event that gave the British organisation the opportunity for the interview.
Anyone in the media business in Africa understands what happened. Simply put: A foreign player shafted a local player in getting the world’s attention. Surprise, surprise. Except it’s no real surprise. In 2025, which presumably will feature a new edition of the event, the Africa Cinema Summit organisers should take a long good look in the mirror.
How many African media organisations were invited to cover the Africa Cinema Summit? How many got the one-on-one opportunity with Idris Elba accorded the BBC?
The BBC is the BBC. It is one of the world’s most respected brands in news. But it became the BBC because it was perceived as valuable. The British government and its people have a hand in what the BBC has become to everyone interested in media.
That several African media brands and platforms have failed to be worthy of tying the BBC’s shoes is unarguable. But there are some that strive to be excellent. There are those that are building credibility in the business of media (including filmefiko.com). But if everyone neglects them to head to the BBC, Africa will never have its own BBC—or Variety or Cineuropa or THR.
If nobody can identify those efforts, then it’s trouble, trouble. And maybe that is the problem: there aren’t a lot of people in powerful positions who can tell what is excellent from what it isn’t. (This is also a problem with African cinema in terms of film awards and film financing but that is an affair to be discussed at some other point.)
I understand the criticism levelled by Asante. It must have been galling to see the “Idris Elba is moving to Africa” news everywhere and nowhere was the Africa Cinema Summit mentioned. I get it. I also get why she mentions the Cannes Film Festival, although she says she doesn’t want to compare. The comparison, though, is instructive.
Anyone who has attended Cannes knows that media organisations get treated according to how the festival ranks the platforms and the journalists. I was in Cannes last year, saw a lot of fine films, and had several interviews, including one with Tanzanian producer Doreen Kilimbe. But if it wasn’t for the influence of the American outfit I write for, my press badge would have been one of the lowliest, which gives very little access.
What will Cannes do?
In essence, Cannes will give the BBC and journalists from the BBC premium treatment; Ghana will do the same to BBC. This is how it works from everywhere. The difference is that the BBC will not give Ghana premium treatment, unless it’s covering war and disease in the country; but the BBC will give Cannes premium treatment every single year.
There are geographical reasons for this; there are also political reasons. Exceptions exist but only the naïve will focus on those exceptions.
Indeed, anyone can deny it but the BBC covered the Africa Cinema Summit mainly because Idris Elba was showing up. A big British media organisation went after a big British actor. And that is what they gave the most energy. That is what they believe their readers and viewers will give the most attention.
That is fine. But in the noise generated by Idris Elba’s African dreams, a vital bit of information has been ignored: Ghana hosted the Africa Cinema Summit in 2024 and the only news item that filtered out to the public and to the larger African film industry is that an actor based in Hollywood wants to move to Africa. Nobody that wasn’t present in Accra last year recalls anything else about a conference that big and important to African cinema.
That should be the Ghana’s Film Authority’s biggest worry. And it should change this year.
It is not a flattering picture. Ghana put in money to organise an event on the business of cinema and the only thing that anyone remembers days after and possibly a year later is that Idris Elba is going to move to Africa at some indefinite point in the future. That was a failure for an event that big—and it is not because the BBC didn’t mention Africa Cinema Summit in a tangential news item that went viral.
It is because a big cinema business event in Africa has not engaged media platforms that have African cinema as their focus. We are building that exact thing at Film Efiko (filmefiko.com), a platform that has African film and TV business as its sole priority. Support us however you can. One way is to subscribe to our newsletter.
As we look forward to this year’s Africa Cinema Summit, we’ll be hoping that Ghana’s Film Authority—alongside other bodies invested in TV and cinema in Africa—gives platforms like ours a chance. Of course, it can also invite the BBC.
