Film Review: MADE IN ETHIOPIA
by Kathryn Loggins
In 2008 China made a huge investment in Ethiopia. They built a sprawling complex of factories intending to make Ethiopia the economic powerhouse of Africa. Ethiopia has a complicated history and is often in crisis because of poverty, civil war, and political and economic instability. China saw an opportunity and started working with the Ethiopian government to procure land for their factories. These factories did provide thousands of jobs for many Ethiopians who had no other opportunities for work. In 2019 directors Xinyan Yu and Max Duncan, having their own experience with globalization growing up, started filming and documenting how this factory complex was changing the Ethiopian economy and how it was affecting its people, especially the ones still living off the land. The Chinese investors were pushing to develop another complex that promised to create 300,000 new jobs. They were being hindered by local landowners unwilling to give up their land until the government gave them their promised replacement land. The complicated relationships between the government, the local people, and the Chinese agenda are all explored in this film which sheds light on the grey areas of progress, modernity, and culture.
The filmmakers shot MADE IN ETHIOPIA over four years and documented the factory complex and a few of its compelling subjects with singular access. They captured the ongoing events during COVID-19 along with a civil war that broke out in 2020 in the Tigray region of the country. Both affected not just the workers, but upper management as well. The film is unique in that it doesn’t quite portray one single side as being villainous or righteous. Each subject of the film follows has flaws and redeeming qualities. Instead of forcing the audience to share a clear opinion with the filmmakers it asks the question of what we are willing to sacrifice for the sake of progress? And is that progress really what is best for an economy? What does progress even mean to a culture that is so rooted in spirituality and tradition and a rural life? The film doesn’t seek to answer these questions, but rather invites the audience to form their own opinions when given a glimpse into the lives of the people in front of the camera.
Similar to the Obama-produced documentary AMERICAN FACTORY (2019) this film doesn’t utilize talking heads, but rather shows each subject in their lived-in environments. Most of the footage is shot driving in cars, having meetings in boardrooms, working on the factory floor, or praying for prosperity around a sacred tree. As an audience, you get to see humanity, the elation, the frustration, the joy, and the suffering just play out in front of you without much of a filter. This makes for a very effective documentary that pushes its audience to ruminate on what it’s like for a country like Ethiopia to want and need economic change, and how that also affects the well-being of its people.
