French-Senegalese actor and producer Seydina Baldé has worn many hats throughout his profession together with World Karate Champion and stuntman on movies resembling Brian de Palma’s Femme Fatale and Bond film Casino Royale, however his dream since childhood has been to be an actor.
After a dozen small elements, 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 few bounty hunter on a mission to interrupt prisoners out of high-security navy compound, offered to Lionsgate for the U.S. and gained reward from motion film followers.
A decade later, Baldé is showing in essentially the most formidable 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 sensible architect and martial arts knowledgeable Gabriel Aliou Thiam who returns after a spell in Asia to his native Senegal and residential metropolis of Dakar, following the demise of his politician father in a automobile crash.
He involves suspect that the demise was not unintended. When native police dismiss his issues, he mounts his personal investigation in a transfer that may convey him up in opposition to Dakar’s prison underworld, in addition to forces outdoors the nation. At 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 (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 title 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 attain 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 thought it was time for an African hero in the vein of Jason Bourne, or Ethan Hunt in Mission Impossible,” says Baldé. “He is part an African Zorro, for the way he works in the shadows, part Jason Bourne.”
He was additionally eager to problem outdoors perceptions of Africa in addition to present its contrasting realities, by way of the character of Thiam, who represents a rising Senegalese, upwardly cell center class, whereas his investigation brings him into contact with darker aspect 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 could see the country was ready to welcome quality productions, when it came 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 first ever premium production to come out of French-speaking Africa. I wanted a solid partner who was open to the action genre, which isn’t easy to pull off and has its own special language,” he explains.
Rideau, who has been based mostly in Africa for greater than 20 years, created Keewu Production in 2012.
The Dakar-based firm turned 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 firm is now a cornerstone of regional pole Mediawan Africa, with Rideau additionally taking over the position of Head of Production inside that group.
Keewu has led the way in which in West Africa when it comes to creating native drama collection with different credit together with C’est La Vie and Black Santiago Club.
Rideau says figuring out above and beneath 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 purpose of supporting and rising the audiovisual ecosystem in Senegal and wider West Africa.
“We’ve had productions in recent years, where 20% of the production costs are linked to training. If more and more series are being shot in Dakar today, it’s because we’ve helped build three, four crews through this work,” he explains.
“With every production we try to push the quality up a little bit more and also move into new genres. One of the reasons we were happy with Sakho & Mangane is that we managed to make an American-style police series out of Africa. What we liked about Seydina’s project was the fact it took the codes of action cinema and transferred them to Africa and Dakar, in a very authentic way.”
Lex Africana launched April 22 on Canal+ Original and Canal+ Afrique and will probably be made obtainable in six months time on Chaine Action, 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 obtainable for the U.S., Canada, Australia and UK.
Both Baldé and Rideau say the dimensions of Lex Africana has laid the bottom for equally formidable collection set in different elements 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 trade already has a track-record within the motion style.
“We’ll be shooting in Johannesburg, Pretoria and Cape Town. It will be a sort of treasure hunt across South Africa with a story at its heart that has global resonance and a mixed local and international cast,” he says.
The pair even have plans for future seasons of Lex Africana.
“The first season is the birth of a hero,” says Baldé. “The first episodes take their time to establish Gabriel’s character, the world he inhabits and the other characters, but by the end of the six episodes, he very much exists and we’d like him to continue his mission, not just in Senegal but in other parts of Africa.”