Subverses - China in Mozambique

Credits

Name: Subverses - China in Mozambique

Country: Mosambik; Österreich

Year of publication: 2010

Format: DVD

Color: color

Language : OF m. dt. UT

Duration: 45 Minuten

Direction: Raidel, Ella

Camera: Raidel, Ella

Editing: Schneider, Thomas

Abstract

"The documentary opens with the image of a Chinese businessman, negotiating on a mobile, on a terrace above the rooftops of Maputo. He stands with his back to us, nameless and faceless. He extols his view over the city and its beauty with the pride of a colonial. The tone is thus set."On her homepage, Ella Raidel starts the description of her film with this quotation (from Sylvia Szely). It shows that Chinese firms in Mozambique also do not proceed "gingerly", but "in accordance with the terms of profit maximisation. The notion of workers having rights is as alien to this way of thinking as the idea that disadvantaging the local workforce could be a form of racism." Set against this is the slam poetry by artists from Maputo as "an expression of autonomy".