In person: Christiane Badgley, director
The Freer|Sackler teams up with the National Museum of African Art to present a new documentary exploring the evolving relationship between China and Africa. Following the film, join us for an engaging discussion with director Christiane Badgley and members of the local African and Asian diasporas. Light refreshments will be served.
Guangzhou, aka Canton, is southern China’s centuries-old trading port. Today, the booming metropolis of fourteen million is a mecca of mass consumption, its vast international trading centers crammed with every “Made in China” good imaginable. Every year, more than half a million Africans travel to Guangzhou, where they buy goods to resell in Africa. Some have chosen to stay, and for these Africans, China looks like the new land of opportunity, a place where anything is possible. But is it?
Featuring a dynamic cast from Cameroon, Kenya, Nigeria, and Uganda, Guangzhou Dream Factory weaves stories of Africans chasing “Made in China” dreams into a compelling critique of twenty-first-century global capitalism. Following a filmmaker’s journey from Ghana to China and back to Africa, the documentary provides a rare glimpse of African aspirations in an age of endless outsourcing. (Dir.: Christiane Badgley, United States, 2018, 65 min., English and Mandarin with English subtitles)