Year: 2019
Country:
United States
Language:
Mandarin, English
Run Time:
115 minutes
Dayton, Ohio has a rich history of innovation and industry as the home for the aviation pioneer Wright Brothers, companies such as National Cash Register, and artists including poet Paul Laurence Dunbar. In the early 20th century, the region was home to more automotive manufacturing than any place in the world outside of Detroit. But globalization and automation have since had a significant impact on families and their access to good-paying work. Acclaimed Ohio filmmakers, Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, had cameras rolling as 2,400 people lost their jobs amidst the 2008 closure of the General Motors Moraine Assembly Plant. The result was the Academy Award®-nominated film, “The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant” (CIFF34). Bognar and Reichert returned to the factory site—large enough to hold 41 football fields—as a Chinese billionaire opened a glassmaking factory there in 2015 and moved a large team of employees to Ohio. Three years of unbelievable access to the factory lines and meetings with the 2,000 employees captured the early days of exhilaration that soon gave way to language and cultural barriers, conflict, and a union organizing campaign. AMERICAN FACTORY offers an all-access experience to factory floors and the Dayton-area homes of workers on both sides of the divide. —Patrick Shepherd
Saturday, March 30, 2019 at 6:45 PM
Sunday, March 31, 2019 at 11:05 AM
Competitions
Local Heroes Competition
Reel Women Direct Award for Excellence in Directing by a Woman
Related Daily Postings
Ohio Filmmakers Go Back: 'Let's Make a Real Documentary, Not a Promotional Film'
Directors
Steven Bognar, Julia Reichert
Steven Bognar is an independent filmmaker and media arts educator. Julia Reichert is a three-time Oscar® nominee, co-founder of New Day Films and Professor Emeritus of Motion Pictures at Wright State University in Ohio. Residents of Yellow Springs, Ohio, the couple won the U.S. Documentary Directing Award at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.
Filmography
A Lion in the House (2006), AMERICAN FACTORY (2019)
Producers
Steven Bognar, Julia Reichert, Jeff Reichert, Julie Parker Benello
Cinematography
Steven Bognar, Aubrey Keith, Jeff Reichert, Julia Reichert, Erick Stoll
Editing
Lindsay Utz
Netflix
http://netflix.com
The SHEPHERD CHEVROLET Film
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