{"id":72531,"date":"2019-08-21T12:09:07","date_gmt":"2019-08-21T16:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/?p=72531"},"modified":"2022-09-29T11:39:47","modified_gmt":"2022-09-29T15:39:47","slug":"american-factory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/2019\/08\/21\/american-factory\/","title":{"rendered":"American Factory"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

\u201cAmerican Factory,” by professor emeritus Julia Reichert and former motion pictures faculty member Steven Bognar, is now streaming on Netflix.<\/p><\/div>\n

The cameras seem to go everywhere \u2014 from the factory floor to executive offices to workers\u2019 apartments. For more than three years, the cameras peered and poked into the fragile lives of people whose futures are hanging on the success of a Chinese company rising from the ashes of an American truck plant.<\/p>\n

And the resultant documentary film produced by Wright State University filmmakers Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar is now splashing across movie, television and computer screens around the world.<\/p>\n

On Aug. 19, hundreds packed into the Victoria Theater in Dayton to see the premiere of \u201cAmerican Factory,\u201d which began airing two days later on Netflix. Both Reichert and Bognar appeared on stage in gray Dayton Strong T-shirts and drew cheers from the audience, which included Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley and Moraine Mayor Elaine Allison.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a homegrown movie made by a home-grown team,\u201d said Bognar, adding that the movie\u2019s credits are thick with the names of people with Wright State connections.<\/p>\n

American Factory is a look at Fuyao Glass America, a Chinese company that took over the site in suburban Moraine of General Motors\u2019 truck plant, which closed in 2008 and put more than 1,000 workers out of jobs.<\/p>\n

The film was initially conceived as a possibly humorous look at the collision of Chinese and American work cultures.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t realize it would be a story about globalization and about the economy and about unions and the battle for the hearts and minds of workers,\u201d said Reichert, Wright State professor emeritus.<\/p>\n

Reichert thanked Fuyao Global Chairman Tak Wong Cho.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe took a chance on Dayton. He took a chance on us,\u201d she said, adding that Cho gave the film crew free rein and never asked that they stop filming. \u201cWe\u2019re very, very grateful for that. That\u2019s a very honorable thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

And Reichert said the film crew tried to honor the access they were given.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got amazing access,\u201d she said. \u201cBut access is one thing; trust is another. We really worked hard to gain trust from people on all levels.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur responsibility was to try to include everyone\u2019s point of view,\u201d added Bognar. \u201c\u2026Even though Fuyao said yes, we still had to have each person we filmed \u2026 let us into their lives, to trust us and to put up with our very annoying cameras and microphones for a few years and put up with our endless questions.\u201d<\/p>\n

“American Factory” received the Best Directing Award for U.S. Documentary at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. It was chosen by Barack and Michelle Obama as the first release by their new company, Higher Ground Productions.<\/p>\n

The film opens on a somber note, with the GM plant closing and the tears and hugs of workers who lost their jobs. It segues into the hopeful, expectant look of job seekers when Fuyao details its plans at a community meeting to launch a glassmaking operation at the site.<\/p>\n

But “American Factory” doesn\u2019t sugar-coat Fuyao\u2019s foray into Dayton. The film also touches on plant safety issues, financial losses and workers\u2019 efforts to unionize.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Videography of the factory floor sparkles. It captures robots fist-gripping plates of glass, the drip of black goo that seals the seams, showers of welding sparks and the angry red-orange of the furnace.<\/p>\n

The American workers express the financial trauma of losing their GM jobs and trying to survive on new, lower incomes. They talk of losing their cars and homes. One worker is forced to move in with her sister, sleeping in a tiny basement bedroom.<\/p>\n

The film also explores the lives of the Chinese workers, many of whom left their spouses and children back in China to try to make a living at Fuyao in Dayton. The cameras are with them when they discover fishing in the Great Miami River and experience the horse farm of an American co-worker.<\/p>\n

The moviemakers also spent two weeks in China, filming a delegation of American workers visiting a Fuyao factory and headquarters. The U.S. workers are visibly impressed by the Chinese workers\u2019 speed and efficiency as well as their devotion to Fuyao, which creates a military-like culture.<\/p>\n

The film ends with sobering talk and visuals of worker-replacing robots, globalization and growing overseas competition.<\/p>\n

Joe Deer, professor and chair of the Wright State Department of Theatre, Dance and Motion Pictures<\/a>, was among those attending the premiere.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought it was fantastic,\u201d he said. \u201cJulia and Steve have this remarkable ability \u2026 to create a kind of drama out of people\u2019s real lives that illuminates big social struggles in ways that seem so personal. And that\u2019s very rare.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bognar, former Wright State professor and an alumnus, gave special thanks at the premiere to the Department of Theatre, Dance and Motion Pictures, saying it has spawned \u201cmany talented young filmmakers.\u201d<\/p>\n

For 28 years, Reichert was a professor of film production at Wright State. She has mentored filmmakers from around the country and is co-founder of Indie Caucus, the action group working to keep the documentary form alive and well on PBS.<\/p>\n

Reichert is a three-time Academy Award nominee, for \u201cUnion Maids\u201d (1977), \u201cSeeing Red\u201d (1984) and \u201cThe Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant\u201d (2010). Reichert\u2019s film \u201cA Lion in the House,\u201d which she produced with Bognar, was a four-hour, two-part primetime PBS special and won the Primetime Emmy for Exceptional Merit in Nonfiction Filmmaking as well as the Henry Hampton Award for Excellence in Film and Digital Media.<\/p>\n

Deer said the success of “American Factory” speaks highly of Wright State\u2019s Motion Pictures Program<\/a> and how interconnected the university is with the region.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are so much a part of Dayton. Dayton is so much a part of us as a campus,\u201d he said. \u201cI think this film is a perfect expression of that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cAmerican Factory,” by professor emeritus Julia Reichert and former motion pictures faculty member Steven Bognar, is now streaming on Netflix. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":72555,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[722,2037,4859,725,747,715],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics","category-arts-scene","category-fine-and-performing-arts","category-home-news-sidebar","category-liberal-arts","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72531"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72531\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72696,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72531\/revisions\/72696"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}