After hearing Africa called poverty growing up in England, Mo Abudu opens a cinema in London to change the narrative

• Mo Abudu has opened EbonyLife Place London, a permanent cinema and cultural centre dedicated to African and Black films.

• The media entrepreneur says growing up in England, where Africa was often associated with poverty, influenced her desire to change the narrative.

• The 160-seat venue will also host performances and showcase African food and fashion, with plans to welcome audiences from different backgrounds.

Nigerian media entrepreneur Mo Abudu has opened a permanent cinema in London dedicated to African and Black films, a project she says was driven in part by her experience growing up in England.

Abudu opened EbonyLife Place London on Thursday, 8 October, in south-west London near Nine Elms, with a 160-seat auditorium for films, performances and cultural events. AFP describes it as the UK's first cinema dedicated exclusively to African and Black films. London Mayor Sadiq Khan joined the opening. The centre will also showcase African food and fashion.

Speaking in an interview with BBC Africa shared on X on Friday, Abudu recalled that when people were asked what came to mind at the word Africa, the answers she heard were "poverty" and babies with flies on their faces. She said those images came largely from what people read in newspapers and saw on television.

Growing up in England, she said, she found herself acting as an ambassador for everything African or Nigerian and was often asked "the most pathetic questions." She said people sometimes said hurtful things and she learned to swallow them and move on. Racism is real, she said, and the way to deal with it is to offer a different narrative.

She described the cinema as a permanent, round-the-clock home for African and Black films, food and fashion. She stressed that it isn't meant to keep those films off other platforms, but that because the community is underrepresented, it needs spaces where it feels safe and can share its own content while inviting the rest of the world in. The only way to do that, she said, is to be in charge of the narrative.

Membership will be open to everyone, with no ethnic or nationality restrictions, though details of the scheme have not been announced.

The programme is still being finalised, but Abudu has said it will include films from across Africa and movies that celebrate Black actors and storytelling, alongside the centre's own productions and the next Black Panther film. She told AFP she would like to open a similar space in Paris, possibly through a partnership.

Abudu, 62, was born in London and heads a media group that stretches well beyond Nigeria. AFP describes her as widely credited with helping usher in the era of Nollywood blockbusters, and she called the cinema "a bit of a mad dream."

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