Three decades ago, a young man from Gabon named Jean-Luc Godard came across a Chinese movie called The Iron Bodyguard, amazed by the martial arts and flying actions in the movie, saying “the Chinese Kung Fu is marvelous.”

With the help of his uncle who was the then Gabonese ambassador to China, the young man travelled a long way to China to learn the Chinese Kung Fu. “Ithought the Chinese could all fly like those in the movies, but came to realize it is not like what has been shown in the movie.”

Now, Jean has acted in more than 20 movies in China, being called a “Kung Fu star” from Africa, but he hoped to act in movies that are more close to the reality in China.

“The African audience are more familiar with Kung Fu movies from the mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan. They know about Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and Jet Li.” But in his views, Kung Fu movies have fewer dialogues and are not close to the reality, thus unable to show what China is really like today to the African audience.

“When we visited Africa several years ago, some local people thought every Chinese is a Kung Fu master. They learned about us through the movies of the 70s and 80s.” said Zhang Yong, executive director of African Movie Research Center of Zhejiang Normal University.

Research shows that it is hard to find contemporary Chinese movies in African cinemas. Even the cinemas in South Africa mainly show European and American movies. The local movies are only shown once a month, and the number of Chinese movies shown is minimal.

“The Chinese movies have reached a certain level in terms of both market and technologies, able to enter developed countries in Europe and America as well as countries along the Belt and Road. Why not Africa?” Zhang Yong said that the crux of the issue is that “those who understand Africa do not understand movies, and those who understand movies do not understand Africa.”

When Lu Xiaoxiu, former head of the African group of the Company for Export and Import of Movies, talked about the process of setting up the African group, he was full of sadness over the interruption of China-Africa movie exchange.“As a film worker, it is our unshakable responsibility to convey the correct information to Africa through movie and TV products.”

At the same time, only a few African movies can be found in the Shanghai International Film Festival. “Early movies related to Africa such as Casablanca, English Patient, Out of Africa and recent ones such as Rwanda Hotel and Blood Diamond are well known, but are not real African movies,” said Jean.

“China-Africa cultural exchange and cooperation is still a short board in China-Africa cooperation. Separated by the vast Indian ocean, we are two worlds not knowing each other very well culturally,” said Liu Hongwu, director of African Studies Film Center. There is still a long way to go before the African general public can appreciate traditional Chinese arts, literature and poems just like their appreciation of Chinese food and Kung Fu.

China proposed the “ten major cooperation initiatives’ in Africa in the following three years at the Johannesburg Summit of FOCAC in early December, which also brought China-Africa movie cooperation and exchange onto the agenda. Zhang Yong believes that the Chinese government puts China-Africa cooperation onto a strategic height. As a bridge of China-Africa cooperation, movie should be fully utilized.

“Having different histories of development, African countries have different needs for movies and TV series.” Zhang Yong believes that movie promotion to Africa should be done differently according to different topics. For instance, countries that have just gone through wars might like movies about wars, while countries that value education might prefer movies on educational topics.

A young man from Minnesota of the US is engaged in movie subtitle translation in China. He told our journalist that through his translation work in recent years, he found many African women like Chinese movies about love stories and family lives.

In 2012, the Chinese TV series The Beautiful Era of A Daughter-in-Law was shown in Africa, after which the General Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television launched a series of programmes of translating Chinese movie and TV products, including “Chinese movies and TV series enter East Africa 1052”. “1052” programme means ten TV series, 52 movies, five cartoons and four documentaries for African mainstream media to show.

Liu Hongwu believes that the Chinese living in Africa can also be a good topic for future China-Africa movie cooperation. There are many stories about Chinese living in Africa, including several thousand Chinese businesses and over one million workers building roads, railways and bridges, whose stories are the real lives of the Chinese in Africa. China-Africa movies about those topics will surely be touching ones.

China-Africa movie exchange in academics is also progressing well. Zhejiang Normal University has established the first African movie research center, aimed at pooling the resources and wisdom of various fields and disciplines to build a platform for China-Africa movie research and cooperation that meet the expectation of the two sides.

“In the future, the discipline should go beyond itself into the market, the society and the overall national diplomatic strategy, so as to open up new dimensions for China-Africa cultural cooperation.” Liu said.