TZ President Samia Suluhu gave 80 hectares of property to Hollywood celebrity Idris Elba

Hollywood actor Idris Elba has been granted permission by Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu to establish a film studio in the nation, providing a sizable parcel of land for the facility.

This comes after Elba and President Suluhu’s January 2023 conversations at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland.

Elba, who is well-known for his parts in Luther and The Wire, has spoken openly his desire to grow the film business in Africa.

The British actor, who has origins in Ghana and Sierra Leone, wants to build a studio that can compete with Hollywood, Nollywood, and Bollywood.

During the Zanzibar International Film Festival, the minister of investments in Zanzibar made a suggestion on the potential moniker “Zollywood,” saying, “I’m not sure what we will call it in Zanzibar, whether Zollywood or Zawood.”

The project’s potential significance was highlighted by the president’s spokesman, who stated, “If successful, the project will help Tanzania as well as East and Central Africa.”

A popular tourist destination, Zanzibar is a semi-autonomous area of Tanzania famed for its gorgeous white beaches, making it an ideal site for the new studio. Elba has bigger plans for African film than just Tanzania. He talked about intentions to open a film studio in Ghana last year; it was going to be called West African Studios.

In February 2023, Elba told Ghanaian media, “We’ve been working on this for three or four years to come up with a plan that will put a facility at the center of African filmmaking.”

Even while he acknowledged the enormous potential in Africa’s film industry, he noted that the required infrastructure was “lacking.”

Beyond creating movies, Elba hopes to develop an environmentally conscious “smart city” in Sierra Leone, the country of his father’s origin. He intends to revitalize an island off the coast of the West African nation with his boyhood buddy.