‘Made in Ethiopia’ Review: A Compelling Look at Chinese Influence in Eastern Africa
variety.comMurtada Elfadl In “Made in Ethiopia,” directors Xinyan Yu and Max Duncan take the macro issue of China’s influence in Africa and present it provocatively through the micro lens of its effect on a few Chinese and Ethiopian individuals striving for a better life.
The film is set at a Chinese industrial complex in Dukem, a small town southeast of Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa. It follows an ambitious Chinese businesswoman trying to expand the complex with the help of Ethiopian bureaucrats and the consequences this expansion has on a factory worker and a farming family that lives nearby.
The businesswoman is Motto Ma, a delusionally ambitious outsider who says things like, “The industrial complex is a tourist hotspot.
We are considering selling tickets.” She makes up the lie, believes and then hypes it. Motto (the film refers to all the subjects with just their first names) is both charming and wily, the type of person who would sing at her company’s function despite not having any talent.
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