The films selected for this chapter manifest contemporary hybridities in Africa: Chinese, European, Soviet, North and South American influences; cultural critiques and theoretical influences; infrastructural and urban influences such as the interventions during the Soviet era, and now by China. The impact of Chinese investment on African infrastructure and, by extension, on social daily spaces and landscapes has been far-reaching, and it is the African continent's largest trading and debt partner. Examples of controversial repayment issues are rife, and China's threat to take over Entebbe International Airport in Uganda, for non-payment of a loan secured in 2015 from China's Exim Bank made headline news in mainstream newspapers such as Le Monde. Another news item in Le Monde in 2018 reported that the headquarters of the African Union in Addis Ababa, whose building was constructed by the Chinese in 2012, had discovered that its IT system, also set up by the Chinese, had hidden espionage equipment that had been secretly transferring all the union's data to Shanghai. However the effects of the pandemic on the economy slowed the pace of Chinese investment activity.

Yuhi Amuli, A Taste of Our Land, Rwanda/Uganda, 2020, 70 Minutes

Set in a nameless African country, land ownership is the pivotal issue in this drama. Based on the director's own experiences working in a Chinese-run mine in Rwanda, the film underscores greed, corruption, land-grabbing and the continued exploitation of Indigenous people and workers by foreign mining companies.

The film opens with a quote from the novel Petals of Blood by Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong’o:

Panoramic views of luxuriant rural forested landscapes, typical of the film's location, predominate in this drama and contrast firmly with shots of a desolate terrain ravaged by the indurate exploitation of land by a foreign mining company that has also created social havoc in the community.