TELEVISION BRIEFING / Bargain buy-ins and cheap cake
Actors in Zimbabwe's most popular home-grown drama wear their own clothes and appear for nothing, out of a sense of duty. Not things you could imagine Joan Collins doing. The first part of CHANNELS OF RESISTANCE (10.55pm C4), a series on world television, examines the extent to which schedules everywhere are dominated by the USA. 'Distress Signals', John Walker's globetrotting documentary, cuts between the filming of Know Your Roots in a village outside Harare, and glitzy schmoozing at the international television sales festival, MIP TV, in Cannes. Here an American executive, sitting by a still from The Equalizer, rejects charges of cultural imperialism: 'If the broadcasting of Kojak is going to be seen as a major threat to your culture, then possibly you have a problem with your own culture.' The Zimbabwean Broadcasting Corporation cannot afford more than one hour of domestic drama a month; its director orders the head of drama to buy cheap cake for a party scene she is filming. ZBC officials trawl MIP TV for bargain-basement buy-ins from Russia, Brazil and Eygpt to supplement Dallas. Sue Ellen looks more blurry than usual on a crackly screen in a bus in rural Zimbabwe.
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