This year I visited the city of Sheffield for the first time, and was immediately taken with it. Once an industrial powerhouse and home to the UK’s steel industry, Sheffield is now the greenest city in the country, with “61% of its catchment area given over to parks, woodlands and gardens,” according to a recent BBC article.
The Steel City’s industrial history made it an appropriate host for a documentary about the industrial growth of another country: Made in Ethiopia, directed by Xinyan Yu and Max Duncan, which held its international premiere at the Sheffield Docfest on 13th June. I have to admit that I knew almost nothing about Ethiopia, China, or their relationship to each other going into this film, so it was sure to be an opportunity to learn.
Filmed over four years, Made in Ethiopia takes us to the region of Dukem, where the sprawling Eastern Industry Zone – the oldest (and largest) of several Chinese-owned industrial parks in Ethiopia, having opened in 2007 - is preparing to expand. We watch events unfold from three female perspectives: Motto, the park’s Chinese director; Beti, a factory worker; and Workinesh, one of the farmers being displaced by the park’s expansion. “Phase Two,” as the project is called, is expected to create tens of thousands of jobs and facilitate continued economic growth – but, the film asks, at what cost?
A lot of time is spent with Motto, first seen charming potential investors and outlining the park’s ambitious plans. She speaks fondly of Ethiopia, calling it “home” and its people “brothers and sisters,” speaks fluent Amharic, and believes that the park is a wonderful gift to the country – which on a purely economic level, is probably true. Ethiopia is especially keen to create jobs for the large segment of the population under 30, a goal that the expansion of the industrial park will certainly accomplish.
Motto’s hopes for the country seem genuine. Having witnessed her home country lift itself out of poverty over a 40-year period, she wants to see Ethiopia do the same, and at numerous points compares Ethiopia to how China used to be. The tension arises because Motto expects the workers and farmers to buy into her vision of a prosperous future – which, in the best-case scenario, would arrive in several generations time.
It’s easy to see why the Ethiopian workers and farmers in the film might reject Motto’s vision. The Ethiopian government, in its haste to secure Chinese investment that would otherwise have gone to another country, won them over with the promise of extremely cheap labour. In the absence of a minimum wage in the private sector, these wages are too low to cover the basic living costs of the workers, often young women who find themselves enduring poor living conditions and difficult or hazardous journeys to and from work.
Cultural differences abound between the workers and their Chinese supervisors - delivering instructions extremely sharply and directly, for example, is considered offensive in Ethiopia. These issues combine to create an environment where many of the workers feel unvalued and underpaid, leading them to question whether this exchange of their time is worthwhile. The film includes a scene where some of the workers stop working in protest, while one of their supervisors scolds them through an Ethiopian interpreter caught between two worlds.
The farmers of Dukem, meanwhile, are being displaced from their land to make way for the park’s expansion. The replacement land promised by the government is yet to materialise – even while construction begins on an elaborate recreation park – leaving the farmers in a tense standoff with the industrial park, who are anxious to proceed with their plans.
Motto is an intriguingly complex character. Far from portraying her as a one dimensional villain, Yu and Duncan present multiple sides to her; we see her video calling her young daughter back in China, and how she’s pulled in all directions at once by the responsibilities of running the park. It’s hard not to be impressed by the sheer amount of energy and determination she has, commanding male-dominated boardrooms and negotiating with government officials with a kind of steely charm.
There are other sides to her that I was less comfortable with: a scene where she meets the farmers to hear their concerns sees her patience with them visibly frittering away, leaving the impression that, despite her conciliatory words, she ultimately sees them as foolishly standing in the way of progress.
Intelligent and driven, Beti dreams of leaving the factory, but, faced with limited options, resolves that she will do her best to progress within the organisation. Her supervisors jokingly suggest that she should be using her free time to learn Mandarin, unaware that Beti is, as always, two steps ahead and is already taking classes. The end of the film reveals that Beti has attempted to leave the park to study, only to return some time later.
The time spent with Workinesh, meanwhile, underlines the strain the park’s expansion is having on farming families. Interestingly, Workinesh has nothing against the industrial park, and is excited by the prospect of raising her children away from the village. Her husband, meanwhile, is determined to stand his ground. The dispute has had a severe impact on family life, and one of their young daughters (speaking with that cheerful matter-of-factness that only children seem to possess) explains that she is extremely sad.
Eventually, plans for the industrial park’s “Phase Two” are catastrophically disrupted, first by the outbreak of Covid-19 in March 2020, and then by the start of the Tigray War that September. The potential investors circling the project flee, leaving “Phase Two” in indefinite limbo.
Made in Ethiopia features no narration. By and large, events are simply allowed to unfold, with the story being told by Yu and Duncan's choices of what to include - at an audience Q&A immediately after screening, the directors mentioned that the final 90-minute film had been edited down from over 500 hours of footage. I can’t help but wonder how Made in Ethiopia would have fared as a multi-part docuseries, with more time to delve into these complex issues (like the precise details of how much revenue the park is generating) and perhaps to see more of the industrial park itself, which houses many more businesses than those we see in the film.
Besides his role as co-director, Max Duncan also doubles as director of photography, bringing out the vivid colour of the landscape and the strong personalities of the principal characters. We’re often shown ominous drone shots of the factory from above, highlighting just how strange and alien it looks compared to the peaceful fields that surround it.
Towards the end of the film, Motto comments that “those who fall behind get trampled on.” This line is used for dramatic effect in the trailer, but is much more chilling in context, where it is thrown away offhandedly as Motto, who at this point has left the park to work for a coffee export business, looks out over the skyline of Addis Ababa. It’s a striking contrast to a scene earlier in the film, where the residents of Dukem express concern over an ancient tree long used for community gatherings and religious ceremonies, but now under threat due to standing in the path of “Phase Two.”
What is progress? And does something always have to be swept aside to make way for it? I was preoccupied with these questions I sat on the bus out of Sheffield, watching the hills of the Peak District recede over the horizon - Made in Ethiopia is the kind of absorbing, challenging documentary that leaves you thinking about it for days (or in this case, over a month!). Ethiopia’s partnership with China may well be the pathway to a prosperous future, but hopefully not at the cost of its soul.
Special thanks to Adedana Ashebir, without whose knowledge, insight and advice this article would not have been possible; and to Camilla Tassi at Dogwoof Documentaries and the “Made in Ethiopia” team for permission to use the photographs.
“Made in Ethiopia” is not currently available to watch outside of the film festival circuit, but hopefully will be soon!
Sources and related reading
Xinyan Yu and Max Duncan on Directing "Made in Ethiopia" (On Documentary podcast)
The Hidden World of Chinese Manufacturing in Ethiopia (The China in Africa Podcast)
Lifting 800 Million People Out of Poverty – New Report Looks at Lessons from China’s Experience
Made in Ethiopia: Challenges in the Garment Industry’s New Frontier