The film industry has emerged not merely as entertainment, but as a formidable instrument of cultural diplomacy, economic restructuring and cross-cultural understanding, a Chinese actor and academic has said.
Lead actor in the television adaptation Together and other films, Jiayang Sangzhu, director of the Cooperation and Exchange Division at China Film Group Cooperation, on Monday told a delegation of Zimbabwean journalists in Beijing on Monday of the need to promote local languages through film.
For Zimbabwe, Mr Sangzhu suggested that the country’s growing film sector could harness this same potential as a vehicle for cultural diplomacy, projecting the nation’s rich heritage, diverse languages and social narratives onto regional and global stages.
“International communication is not only about sending content out, but about helping others read, feel and interpret it within their own cultural environment,” he said.
He added that Zimbabwean filmmakers could strategically collaborate with foreign distributors and cultural institutes to screen locally produced stories abroad, thereby reshaping perceptions and attracting tourism and investment.
“We learn from each other and one culture should not conquer another.
“The film Together, when it was filmed and broadcast by a Japanese network, the language was in Japanese and not Chinese language.
“International communication is not only about sending content out, but about helping others read, feel and interpret it within their own cultural environment.
“We learn from each other and one culture should not conquer another.”
He described the production as his first direct experience with cultural outreach through screen storytelling.
“For me this was the first direct experience of cultural outreach through screen storytelling. It revealed how performance, media explanation and audience reception is powerfully.”
However, he warned of enmass importing movies from other countries especially from USA saying some productions have “malicious intent”.
He noted that with rapid changes in the film sector, it is critical “to move toward a market oriented environment in which theatrical release, box office performance, audience segmentation and commercial promotion became increasingly decisive.”
He added the aspects of international communication capacity in China’s media industry and a shift to market-driven industry.
He stressed that China’s film development can be seen as a sequence of marketisation, converged circulation and international outreach.
“Chinese media institutions expanded overseas facing channels and multilingual digital pathways to make Chinese stories, films and cultural values more viable globally.
“China’s film industry first completed the process of marketisation, then embedded itself in a converged communication system, further moved toward international communication and trading networks and finally overflowed into composite ‘films’ consumption and urban cultural scenes.”
Mr Sangzhu indicated that he has curated and executed the Dutch, Australian and Italian film showcases in China while supporting Chinese film showcase projects in Russia, Brazil and other countries. Now he is promoting two-way cultural exchange and mutual learning through film and integrated media.
He urged arts journalists to pursue first-hand reporting across the entire film production value chain – from production and editing to screening and post-premiere activities.
“This is media convergence era and I hope you will gain valuable insights from Chinese media. Today I’m happy to interact with media from Zimbabwe. China Film outreach has moved from individual films entering oversees markets.
“It is increasingly organised through policy guidance, distribution channels, festival platforms, regional corporation and media markets.
“Media convergence reconstructs film communication by linking local resources, mainstream media hub, platform ecosystem and data coordination.”-herald
