MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
To hear the hard-charging manager of a Chinese-owned industrial park in Ethiopia tell it, it's a manufacturer's dream come true.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "MADE IN ETHIOPIA")
MOTTO MA: This park is just like a small city.
UNIDENTIFIED BUSINESSMAN: OK.
MA: We have everything inside it. We cost a lot of money to build, and we own transformer stations.
UNIDENTIFIED BUSINESSMAN: Yeah.
MA: For example, if you need a 50-person, you need a 100-person, anytime you can find it. You can find the raw materials you have inside of a cement factory. We have ceramic factory, aluminum factory.
UNIDENTIFIED BUSINESSMAN: All of it.
MA: Yes.
MARTIN: There's space, access to raw materials and a ready supply of workers apparently eager for jobs. And about those workers - what's in it for them? Jobs, opportunity, a better quality of life. What could possibly go wrong? That's the question at the center of a remarkable new documentary that follows three women and tells the story of how their lives intersect with the industrial park. As a huge new addition is planned, all of them increasingly wonder whether the sacrifices are worth it. It's called "Made In Ethiopia." And with me now are the directors, Max Duncan and Xinyan Yu. Welcome. Thank you both so much for joining us.
XINYAN YU: Thank you, Michel.
MAX DUNCAN: Thanks, Michel.
MARTIN: I have so many questions. I barely know where to start. I know how hard it can be to get into a single factory in the U.S., let alone a park with hundreds of factories and to get all this access, up close and personal, while they're making all these decisions. Xinyan, how did you get in?
YU: Well, we owe our access to Motto, who is this very charismatic Chinese businesswoman who...
MARTIN: That's what you hear at the beginning in the clip.
YU: Exactly. And she was this person who - you know, she spoke some Amharic. She spoke great English. And she was very much connected with the local community and investors. And she knows that this particular industrial zone was covered in the news, and people have read about it, but the coverage was very black and white. And you don't really get to see what's going on under the surface. So she welcomed us with open arms.
MARTIN: Just give us a sense of the scale, if you would, because we don't have a lot of these in the United States. Max?
DUNCAN: When we started filming, which was in 2019, I think it had around 20,000 workers working across a hundred factories that were almost all Chinese.
MARTIN: Wow.
DUNCAN: And it looks enormous. You know, it's this huge square of land that's basically just sort of dropped into the middle of the Ethiopian countryside. So with these great big drone shots that we have in the filming, you know, it looks pretty extraordinary, like it just landed from out of space.
MARTIN: Xinyan, you - the film tells the bigger story, but it tells the story through the eyes of these three central characters - Motto, who's the - what's her title? Director of the...
YU: She's the deputy manager.
MARTIN: Deputy manager of the factory. And you can hear in that opening clip that she is a firecracker - I mean, just kind of like, da da da. She's all - doing all the things. You also follow Beti, who works in one of the factories, and you see her friends. And then you also follow - is it Workinesh? - who is a farmer, who lives with her family right outside sort of the boundaries of the factory. Xinyan, you want to take this? How did you focus on these three characters?
YU: I think it just came kind of naturally to us. We were following Motto around and just seeing her operating in a sea of men and trying to convince people and trying to kind of negotiate with the farmers and the officials. So she came very naturally as our - one of our lead characters.
Along the way, you know, we also noticed that the majority of the workforce were women. So Beti just stood out because she was this very sassy group of girls and, you know, who have their own endeavors and finding it really hard to escape the poverty cycle.
And Workinesh is someone who really stood out to us as well. You know, she's a very dignified woman. And Workinesh was someone who had a vision. She wanted her girls to participate in industrialization. But her husband, you know, represents the men in the village who find it very hard to leave the land. And so there's a natural, interesting conflict in this family that represents a larger clash of modernity and tradition.
MARTIN: One of the things the film does is give people an opportunity to speak for themselves about how they feel about what they're doing. And one of the things that really struck me is Motto, she seems very convinced that she's really helping Ethiopia. You know, I think many people have this image of, like, China is just there to take. But she really expresses this conviction.
YU: I think it's real interesting 'cause I - growing up in China, my parents work in factories for 30 years, hoping that that will create a better future for us. So I think many Chinese people have kind of signed up for the hard work so that at the end of the tunnel is a promise that, you know, you'll own a house to yourself. You'll probably provide education for your kids. So I think it's the trade-off that we kind of were signing up for. I believe that she's very genuine in believing that development is the way out of poverty, is the way out of unrest, is the way out of the current hardship that a lot of the Ethiopians are facing. But, you know, I think what she's probably not taking into the picture is, you know, it's a very complex situation.
MARTIN: So it's very clear if you go anywhere in Africa that China is very present in a way that the U.S. is not. And the U.S. is actually withdrawing. I mean, the U.S., in terms on the humanitarian side, has been very present. But the agency that spearheaded that was literally just closed down. And I just wonder, is there something that the U.S. doesn't get about Africa, or is there just a different calculation by each country about the importance of Africa?
DUNCAN: So, I mean, I think Ethiopia is a great example of what's happened because Ethiopia, I think, was looking to both China and the U.S. for different things. You know, Ethiopia was the biggest recipient of U.S. aid money in Africa, and the U.S. was their biggest humanitarian donor, and that's just gone. And during the last couple of decades, in terms of business, in terms of infrastructure and also in terms of, for example, you know, there are so many Ethiopian students now - and from all over Africa - who go to China to study administration, to study economics. So on sort of all these different platforms, China is really pulling Africa towards itself. China views Africa as an opportunity rather than a sort of problem or a set of problems to be solved.
MARTIN: Well, this film is filled with surprises. I don't want to give it all the way. This is not a spoiler. The film actually opens with a wedding - a wedding between a Chinese man and an Ethiopian woman. So I'm just curious why you open the film that way.
YU: Yeah. The wedding to us is very much of a symbol. The scene itself, you can interpret in so many different ways. People can feel awkward, feel sweet, feel like it's surprising. It's kind of like the relationship between China and Ethiopia. You know, it's a relationship of convenience. It's a relationship of - sometimes it benefits both of them. Sometimes it hurts both of them. Sometimes it's awkward. So I think that marriage is kind of symbolism to start the film, and you can take away whatever you want from that scene because the relationship itself is so complex, like a marriage.
MARTIN: That is Xinyan Yu and Max Duncan. They are the co-directors of the documentary "Made In Ethiopia." It's airing on PBS starting July 14. You want to check your local listings for the exact times.
Xinyan Yu, Max Duncan, thank you both so much for joining us.
YU: Thank you, Michel.
DUNCAN: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF ALI HELNWEIN'S "THE HARD TRUTH") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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