French-Senegalese actor and producer Seydina Baldé has worn many hats throughout his profession together with World Karate Champion and stuntman on movies similar to Brian de Palma’s Femme Fatale and Bond film On line casino Royale, however his dream since childhood has been to be an actor.
After a dozen small components, Baldé engineered his first starring position with the self-produced, English-language motion thriller Covert Operation (aka The Borderland). The North Korean-set film, a couple of bounty hunter on a mission to interrupt prisoners out of high-security army compound, bought to Lionsgate for the U.S. and received reward from motion film followers.
A decade later, Baldé is showing in essentially the most bold manufacturing of his profession, six-part present Lex Africana, which is being billed as the primary martial arts-based motion thriller to return out of West Africa.
Baldé performs good architect and martial arts skilled Gabriel Aliou Thiam who returns after a spell in Asia to his native Senegal and residential metropolis of Dakar, following the dying of his politician father in a automobile crash.
He involves suspect that the dying was not unintentional. When native police dismiss his issues, he mounts his personal investigation in a transfer that may deliver him up in opposition to Dakar’s legal underworld, in addition to forces outdoors the nation. On the identical time, Thiam takes a job with a neighborhood NGO which exposes him to a brighter imaginative and prescient for Senegal.
The solid additionally options Maud Baecker (Tomorrow is Ours), Richard Sammel (The French Village), Aicha Ba (Manjak), Matar Diouf (Wara, Atlantics), Amélie Mbaye (Emprise), Moussa Sow (Banel & Adama) and Eriq Ebouaney (Right here and There) in addition to stuntman and long-time Baldé collaborator Serge Crozon-Cazin.
The title Lex Africana takes its cue from Pax Romana, the identify given to the 200 years of peace and prosperity inside the Roman empire from 27 BC to 180 AD. Lex Africana hero Gabriel is on a mission to realize the identical stability in Africa.
Seydina Baldé, Alexandre Rideau (c) Franck Castel MPP
Baldé created and co-wrote the collection with Manuel di Zio. The collection is produced by Keewu Productions, the Dakar-based firm and Mediawan Africa subsidiary led by Alexandre Rideau, in co-production with Baldé’s Shimazu Productions.
“I believed it was time for an African hero within the vein of Jason Bourne, or Ethan Hunt in Mission Unattainable,” says Baldé. “He’s half an African Zorro, for the best way he works within the shadows, half Jason Bourne.”
He was additionally eager to problem outdoors perceptions of Africa in addition to present its contrasting realities, via the character of Thiam, who represents a rising Senegalese, upwardly cell center class, whereas his investigation brings him into contact with darker facet of his nation.
Baldé, who was born and raised in France and in addition lived in Canada for a time, woke as much as the potential of capturing in Senegal when he was solid in Stefano Sollima’s 2020 Sky Atlantic, Canal+ and Amazon Prime Video Italian crime drama ZeroZeroZero, for 2 episodes which shot within the nation.
“I might see the nation was able to welcome high quality productions, when it got here to its technicians,” he stated.
He sought out Rideau as a companion after being impressed by Keewu’s 2019 Dakar-set cop collection Sakho & Mangane, created by Jean Luc Herbulot (Saloum), and starring Issaka Sawadogo and Yann Gael.
“For me, that was the primary ever premium manufacturing to return out of French-speaking Africa. I wished a strong companion who was open to the motion style, which isn’t straightforward to drag off and has its personal particular language,” he explains.
Rideau, who has been primarily based in Africa for greater than 20 years, created Keewu Manufacturing in 2012.
The Dakar-based firm grew to become a part of Lagardère Studios in 2015, which in flip was acquired by pan-European movie and TV content material group Mediawan in 2020. The corporate is now a cornerstone of regional pole Mediawan Africa, with Rideau additionally taking over the position of Head of Manufacturing inside that group.
Keewu has led the best way in West Africa by way of growing native drama collection with different credit together with C’est La Vie and Black Santiago Membership.
Rideau says figuring out above and under the road skills, after which coaching and accompanying them within the early levels of their careers, is on the coronary heart of Keewu’s operations with the intention of supporting and rising the audiovisual ecosystem in Senegal and wider West Africa.
“We’ve had productions lately, the place 20% of the manufacturing prices are linked to coaching. If an increasing number of collection are being shot in Dakar at this time, it’s as a result of we’ve helped construct three, 4 crews via this work,” he explains.
“With each manufacturing we attempt to push the standard up a bit bit extra and in addition transfer into new genres. One of many causes we had been pleased with Sakho & Mangane is that we managed to make an American-style police collection out of Africa. What we preferred about Seydina’s undertaking was the very fact it took the codes of motion cinema and transferred them to Africa and Dakar, in a really genuine means.”
Lex Africana launched April 22 on Canal+ Unique and Canal+ Afrique and shall be made out there in six months time on Chaine Motion, the French community run by Mediawan Thematics which is a part of the Canal+ bouquet.
Mediawan’s worldwide gross sales arm, which put down a MG, is now engaged on securing distribution outdoors the French-speaking world, with rights out there for the U.S., Canada, Australia and UK.
Each Baldé and Rideau say the dimensions of Lex Africana has laid the bottom for equally bold collection set in different components of the African continent.
Baldé reveals they’re within the late levels of growth on a brand new English-language present set and shot throughout South Africa, the place he notes the cinema business already has a track-record within the motion style.
“We’ll be capturing in Johannesburg, Pretoria and Cape City. It is going to be a form of treasure hunt throughout South Africa with a narrative at its coronary heart that has world resonance and a combined native and worldwide solid,” he says.
The pair even have plans for future seasons of Lex Africana.
“The primary season is the delivery of a hero,” says Baldé. “The primary episodes take their time to ascertain Gabriel’s character, the world he inhabits and the opposite characters, however by the tip of the six episodes, he very a lot exists and we’d like him to proceed his mission, not simply in Senegal however in different components of Africa.”