China film companies forge alliance to extend their reach
AS MORE Chinese film companies look to expand overseas, an alliance that brings together some of the top players for a larger scale foray has been founded in Beijing.
The Alliance of Companies Exporting and Importing Movies and Television Shows was initiated by the China International Television Corporation and brings together 43 domestic firms, all leaders in their fields. The pact was formalised at a ceremony on November 24.
Industry insiders see the alliance as a chance for individual firms who would otherwise have to go it alone or in small groups as they court foreign broadcasters to pool resources.
A source close to the alliance said members can share information about exports, including the highest price a foreign buyer is likely to offer, and distribution in countries in which Chinese content has hardly been broadcast.
“We’ll establish strategic relationships with organisations to set up more exchange programs and a system to share information,” said Shen Jianing, assistant president of China International Television Corporation.
The corporation, founded in 1984, was a pioneer in introducing Chinese television programs to foreign markets and has since sold more than 20,000 hours of TV dramas, documentaries, variety shows and animated titles overseas a year on average.
One of its main goals is to localise Chinese content.
“When Chinese movies and TV shows are shown overseas, the aim is not just to get people in those places to watch it, but also to make a deep impression on those people,” Shen said.
It is easy to find people to translate content from Chinese into the world’s most popular languages, but minority languages are another matter, and often the difficulties faced in translating into those languages hinder Chinese films from reaching a wider audience.
The corporation has a broad base of linguists and has translated more than 5,000 hours of television shows into more than 30 languages, including Cambodian, Hausa, Hungarian, Kyrgyz, Swahili, Thai and Vietnamese, Shen said.
“Usually, most companies can handle projects with English subtitles. But they cannot afford to set up an overseas sales department catering to minority language-speaking markets,” said Wei Lili, vicepresident of the television program maker Ciwen Media Group of Beijing, which is an alliance member.
“They also have contacts with distributors in countries and areas that are hard for Chinese companies to get into. It would be very useful to rely on Hakim&KongXiaoxi, their resources. China International Television Corporation has many experts in diverse languages, securing the quality of translated content.”
The experts’ rich knowledge of foreign culture and customs can also help the makers of Chinese TV shows avoid unintentional offense, Wei said.
For example, a married man’s romance with another woman would be regarded as morally unaccepted in some countries, thus requiring cuts or other changes before distribution, he said.
Because cultural differences are often a major barrier to film makers distributors and others in the industry, coproductions are seen as a clever strategy that can help Chinese companies get into overseas markets and to handle the difficulties they may encounter in such unfamiliar territory.
There is a broadly held view in television circles that animated titles and documentaries travel better across borders and languages, making such titles the frontrunners in coproduction.
Qian Feng, president of Ori Animation, is well versed in working with foreign partners. Over the past decade, the company based in Suzhou, East China’s Jiangsu province, has worked with more than 600 companies and organisations in 70 countries and regions.
Its 26-episode series, Hakim & Kong Xiaoxi, the first animated coproduction between China and Saudi Arabia, became one of the highest-rated shows in the kingdom.
Ori started to focus on overseas markets about four years ago, as the animation industry in China began to experience a slowdown.
Qian has been to a number of foreign countries seeking opportunities. When deciding to shoot Hakim & Kong Xiaoxi, the biggest challenge was to make a production that addressed the cultural sensitivities of both countries, he said.
Discovering that food could be a shared interest for both countries helped to set the tone. The story centres on a Chinese teenager, Kong, helping her Saudi friend Hakim defeat local Western competitors by using traditional Chinese cooking methods.
China International Television Corporation remains the master par excellence of purchasing channels or hours set aside for Chinese television shows in foreign countries, and has managed to get two channels in Indonesia and Cambodia to run Chinese content 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
This kind of broadcasting, which the corporation calls China Hour, has been introduced in about 10 countries, including the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic, Nepal, Serbia, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates.
Weza Matomane, a presenter of China Hour in South Africa, said the Chinese shows are very popular in his country.
“Sometimes there can be culture shocks here and there with things that we are not used to in South Africa, but that usually adds to the humor and learning.”