Made in Ethiopia

Xinyan Yu & Max Duncan – Canada, Ethiopia, USA, UK, Denmark 2024 – 91 minutes – spoken language: Chinese, Amharic, English, Oromo, with English subtitles

In Dukem, a city located in the heart of Ethiopia, there is a huge industrial park built by Chinese investors since 2008. Motto, general manager of the park, is a woman of distinction, yet she too must pull out all the stops to make the next, huge expansion a reality. That expansion will involve 30,000 jobs, but it will also leave the park adjacent to a dusty farming town, where people’s lives are still defined by the changing of the seasons. What are the implications of all this?

Filmmakers Xinyan Yu and Max Duncan followed this whole process for four years, resulting in this nuanced film about the many contradictions involved: between the Chinese and the Ethiopians, between urban and rural, between man and woman and, above all, between profit-driven entrepreneuralism and land-rooted tradition. Motto gives her take on things, as do factory worker Beti and farmer Workinesh.

This feature film in the Movies that Matter on Tour series will be introduced and followed by a discussion. Subtitles and discussion in English.
With the On Tour program, Movies that Matter organizes screenings with in-depth programmes in The Netherlands and online. They do this in collaboration with a diverse array of organizations and companies. Among other things, they also organise the annual Movies that Matter festival in The Hague.