Nollywood dubbed into French conquered francophone Africa two decades ago. The traffic is only now starting to move the other way. Dubbing is the cheapest cultural export policy nobody funds.

Anyone who watched television in Douala, Abidjan or Kinshasa in the 2000s remembers Nigerian films speaking French with a handful of recognisable voices. Dubbing turned an English-language industry into a continental one. It cost a fraction of production and multiplied the audience.

The asymmetry

The reverse flow barely exists. French-language films from Cameroon, Gabon or Congo are rarely dubbed or even subtitled into English, which cuts them off from the continent’s largest media markets and from the diaspora audience in the US and UK. The reasons are budgetary — subtitling and dubbing are line items that small productions cut first — and structural, since there are few buyers asking.

The new variable

Automated dubbing and voice synthesis have made the cost collapse. That creates both an opportunity and a fight: the same technology that could open markets for a Yaoundé producer threatens the voice actors who built careers on dubbing. Any serious article must talk to both sides.

The reporting

• What did dubbing cost a decade ago, and what does it cost now?
• Which studios in the region do this work, and how many people do they employ?
• Are broadcasters and platforms commissioning French-to-English dubbing of African content?
• What do voice actors and their representatives want?