Sino-South African Film Industry Connections: A Preliminary Review

This chapter considers film industry—especially film festival and co-production—relationsbetween the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and South Africa, and aims to reflect on whetherthey represent the emergence of alternative networks that counterbalance traditional relationshipsrouted through the Global North, or merely supplement and, in some cases, replicate theproblems of those conventional connections. While contemporary film production and thefestival circuit are structured such that African countries often rely on western European events,or Hollywood, both for investment and exposure, there ext historical precedents for alternativenetworks established to counterbalance these relationships, particularly between the formerUSSR and the so-called ‘developing world’. The emergence of China as a direct economiccompetitor to the Global North in Africa raises the question of whether it can provide ameaningful alternative to Global North dominance of South Africa’s ‘screen worlds’, hereunderstood as the networks of festivals and film production, as well as the cinema that emergesfrom these relationships. Through an initial mapping of three key arenas—industry festivals, softpower events, and co-productions—through which South Africa and China have explored filmindustry connections, we argue that, despite attempts at strengthening ties, current connectionsare both unstable and characterized as much by continued inequalities between the two countriesas by a newly equitable relationship. While this reflects the intertwining of the film industry withbroader national policies on both sides, it also reflects both the difficulty of replacing existingnetworks, and, arguably, the centrality of private enterprise in driving the growth of theserelationships. In this context, this chapter concludes that it seems unlikely that the Chinese andSouth African film industries will establish networks that model alternative ways of interactingas distinct from those already in place between Europe, North America, and the rest of the world.