Jackie Chan is globally renowned for his jump kicks and stunts, but during a promotional tour for his 2015 film Dragon Blade, it was the kungfu master's linguistic skills that attracted attention. In a short online video, Chan greeted his fans using four of Nigeria's local languages, namely Pidgin, Yoruba, Hausa and Igbo, creating a huge buzz among his Nigerian followers.

Chan speaking African languages is only further proof of the growing interconnectivity between Nigeria's and China's entertainment industries. As the Chinese film industry is seeking to win over foreign moviegoers, Nollywood (as the local movie industry is known) is now looking east to China as a promising market. On both sides, there is a growing appetite for collaboration and exchanges.

At the very forefront of this trend is the StarTimes Group. The Beijing-based multinational media company has been a pioneer in making Chinese culture available on the African continent. It has been so successful in doing so that bringing China's favorite movies and shows to Nigerian TV-fans has now become an integral part of the StarTimes' business model. As Ma Shaoyong, StarTimes West Africa Marketing Director, told ChinAfrica: "We see ourselves now as a cultural bridge between Africa and China."

Chinese season in Africa

Founded in 1988, StarTimes has become a major TV-network operator and content provider in Africa. The company got its first foothold on the African continent in 2007, when it became Rwanda's first digital TV operator. In August 2009, the company set foot in the Nigerian market and since then has grown to provide digital TV services to 8 million subscribers in 10 African nations.

While aiming to provide accessible and affordable digital TV to Africa, StarTimes has also made its mission of supporting cultural exchanges. On September 22, it launched the Beijing Television Dramas and Movies Broadcasting Season in Africa (Beijing TV Season) in Abuja, Nigeria, which will air 400 Chinese TV dramas episodes and 17 movies in Nigeria.

"It's the third time that StarTimes and Beijing Municipal Bureau of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television cooperated to organize the Beijing TV Season," said Luke Liu, in charge of overseas public relations at StarTimes. The season, which is scheduled to last for a full year, has been held with resounding success in 2014 and 2015, and even expanded to Tanzania and Rwanda in 2016.

As inter-cultural relations between Chinese and African people are growing, Chinese TV dramas and movies have gained popularity and become a significant cultural force in building relations between the two countries. "Good stories will always resonate with people, as many feelings and emotions are shared, even between different cultures and civilizations," Liu told ChinAfrica.

Among the dramas aired this year are Love's Bodyguard, Beijing Love Story and Crazy Neighbors. Based on audience ratings, Mazu and Woman in a Family of Swordsman are currently two most popular TV dramas in 2016.

Nathan Nathaniel Ekpo, a Nigerian movie industry journalist, told ChinAfrica that a major reason behind StarTimes' success in Nigeria and other African countries has been the efforts put into dubbing Chinese movies and TV shows into Yoruba and other local Nigerian languages, which helps connect with local viewers.

For China's Vice Minister of Culture, Ding Wei, who visited Africa six times over the past few years, events such as StarTimes' Beijing TV Season are fully in line with the concept of "better telling the China story" put forward by President Xi Jinping in 2014.

"I think cultural exchanges can be a common-language between China and Africa," he said during a seminar on China-Africa cultural cooperation held in Beijing in October. "Developing culture is the real purpose of humanity, it is a more advanced stage of exchanges, and it brings greater momentum and vitality to exchanges between China and Africa in other areas."

Screen-to-screen exchanges

As Chinese dramas and kungfu movies are becoming increasingly popular in Nigeria, Nigeria's film directors and producers are starting to look to China as a chance for Nollywood to spread its wings.

With more than 1,800 movies produced every year, Nollywood is the second largest movie industry in the world in terms of production volume after India's Bollywood, and was valued at more than $5 billion in 2014. But more than a sheer economic force, Nollywood has become Nigeria's trademark to the world, its soft power. According to observers, it can play a role in further enhancing people-to-people ties and cultural understanding.

Easing Nollywood's access to the Chinese market was one of the priorities for Nigeria's Permanent Secretary of Ministry of Culture, Ayotunde Adesugba, during her trip to Beijing in October, at the invitation of the Central Academy of Cultural Administration.

"Our movie industry, Nollywood, serves as a very good cultural reservoir. This is an area where we can do a lot in terms of exchange of movies, but also in the area of capacity-building. I firmly believe we can benefit from this," she told ChinAfrica.

According to her, the movie industry is one of the most promising grounds for cultural cooperation between the two countries, and it could bring huge benefits for producers in Nigeria. There are more than 31,000 modern movie screens in China, but less than 100 in Nigeria and around 1,000 in the whole of Africa.

"China can absolutely become a market for Nollywood movies. The thing is that Chinese movies are already quite popular in Nigeria, especially martial arts and the like. Of course, I think we can do better, we can exchange movies more effectively, as well as promoting our respective culture," Adesugba said.

For StarTimes, the idea of organizing a "Nigerian Season" on Chinese television is interesting, but current market demand is not strong enough.

"It is true that some of Chinese people are curious about Nigerian TV dramas and movies, but the audience is not large enough yet," said Liu. "If there is a chance in the future, StarTimes will weigh up the idea seriously."

Challenges ahead

Lawrence Akande, who obtained a postgraduate degree at the Beijing Film Academy and now works as a Nollywood movie producer, is confident that cultural partnership between both countries offers promising prospects, despite remaining obstacles.

Akande argues that if Nigerian directors want their movies to be watched abroad, they first need to have a deep and intimate understanding of their target market's culture. "It is difficult to penetrate a country you are not familiar with," he said.

One solution is to increase diversification and collaboration. "[It's about] diversification in term of culture and collaboration in term of production. These techniques are already used by Hollywood to enter different countries and attract more audiences around the globe," Akande told ChinAfrica.

Collaboration can also help alleviate the lack of understanding of foreign markets' regulations and standards among Nigerian movie producers, which has long been a major obstacle for exporting Nollywood movies abroad.

Akande points out that increased cooperation would not only benefit Nigeria, but also help Chinese producers better understand Nigeria's market, where Chinese movies must face increased competition from Korean and Japanese dramas.

Despite these challenges, Akande is confident China will become a major market in the future for Nollywood's movies.

"I lived in China for five years, and I know that Africa and China share cultural beliefs," he told ChinAfrica. "If people in both countries understand their common shared values, they will appreciate [each other's] movies."