When a beautiful daughter-in-law meets Africa: Translating Chinese films and television programmes for the African market

Abstract

There has been a long-standing cooperative relationship between the Chinese film industry and African film industries since the 1950s. In recent years, more and more Chinese film and television studios have sought to sell their products abroad, which has meant investing in translation. In order to project the image of a modern China with a rich cultural heritage, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) launched the ‘Sino-Africa Film and Television Cooperation Project’ to promote the translation and dissemination of Chinese films and television products in Africa. As a result, two models for this translation process have emerged: one government sponsored and one commercial. This article will use the translation of Chinese film and television programmes for Tanzania as a case study to analyse how each model is institutionally organized, their target audiences and approaches to distribution and the content of the resulting translations.

Africa-China Knowledge Networks: State of the Field

“…At the same time, "media" could be understood more broadly: it offers the possibility for cooperation between China and Africa beyond strict reporting. For instance, China offers training programs to journalists (Benabdallah 2017), and various cooperation projects center around Chinese film translation for African audiences (Jin 2020;Jedlowski 2021) or grassroots cinematic connections between China and Africa, as Bao (2020) notes for the Queer University Video Capacity Building Training Program.…”