Since the beginning of the year palpable change is in the air. It is readily apparent to me that a critical mass has been reached and that China's long-time inability to master the art of soft power and cultural diplomacy is finally changing. The few popular long-time staples of Chinese cultural diplomacy like kung fu fighters and acrobats, together with a few memorable highbrow museum shows, now have more and more company.

In plain language, putting Ghana’s tourism where we want it also demands the active participation of our film makers. Quite frankly, our filmmakers can’t do this alone. They need a nudge and more from our national branding authorities.

APDS Blogger: Emina Vukic

Hopefully Mica’s story, which became about baseball as a metaphor for increased relations with Cuba, can thus join the continuum of using baseball for cultural exchanges...Along the way, he experienced a cultural exchange, and learned that when it comes to Cuba and the United States, there is much more that is similar than different.

The China Film Group functions as the Chinese government’s guardian of a film market that recently become the world’s second-largest in box-office receipts behind the United States. On a broad array of business dealings — censorship, distribution and co-productions — it is the conduit for foreign moviemakers hoping to make or distribute films in China.

“Somalia is a bizarre world where in their communities piracy can be accepted as just a job, an acceptable profession, to a degree. The pirates are just trying to survive because there is simply no economy or industry there."

Kazakhstan was decidedly not amused when British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen poked fun at the former Soviet nation six years ago in his rollicking, often profane mockumentary "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan."

One would have thought that after that 1979 Bollywood breach of the Chinese market, Indian movies would have found slow but ready acceptance in that country. However, the next Bollywood film to make as massive an impact was the Aamir Khan starrer 3 Idiots, nearly 32 years later