Kenya launches new drama series

Chinese media company StarTimes launched, on Thursday, a new drama series dubbed KIU, an intricate tale of love, lust and vengeance, aimed at African audiences.

Boasting some of Kenya's best actors, the drama joins a variety of exclusive local content productions executed over this year, among them Kupatana and NIA.

Speaking at the launch event, Hanson Wang, the chief executive officer of StarTimes' Kenya office, expressed commitment to continue supporting Kenya's creative industry through commissioning more original productions.

Timothy Owase, the chief executive of the Kenya Film Commission, thanked StarTimes for its immerse contribution in the Kenyan film industry.

"I commend StarTimes for your effort and strategic intent in creating opportunities for Kenyan artists in all ways," he said.

"In addition to gaining subscribers, you have come up with programs that entertain while at the same time support Kenyan talents."

Owase called for more collaborations that would see African stories being aired in China.

Tang Jianjun, the culture counselor at the Chinese embassy in Kenya, said China's door is open and welcomed Kenyan enterprises to go to China to promote Kenyan culture and tourism.

The move he said would allow more Kenyan cultural products to enter Chinese market further benefiting China-Kenya cultural cooperation.

Tang said the cultural agreement between China and Kenya which dates back to the 1980's, has played a strong leading role in carrying out various cultural exchanges and cooperation between the two countries and their people.

"We encourage more Chinese cultural enterprises to invest and develop in Kenya and conduct more mutually beneficial cooperation with Kenyan enterprises," he said.

Tang said the launch of KIU is a great success of the two countries' cultural exchanges and has given the confidence to continue strengthening future cooperations.

Christopher Wambua, the acting chief executive officer at the Kenya Film Classification Board, said as a content regulator, it is commendable that Kenyans are interacting more and more with local content.

"We call upon content developers to continue engaging with us towards ensuring their content fits both traditional and new media platforms and reaches towards maximizing audiences in Kenya and beyond," he said.

Rembo TV, which will air KIU, is available across Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda thus presenting a platform to market Kenyan productions across the region.