American Factory Gets An Oscar Nomination!

American Factory gets Oscar Buzz

Former president Barack Obama once again trolls Donald J. Trump. He will be the political leader to be nominated for an Oscar. He could add an Oscar to his trophy case. He already has a Grammy, Nobel Peace Prize and Humanitarian Award.

The documentary about Dayton, Ohio's former General Motors plant closing up in 2008 is nominated for an Academy Award. The film talks about Fuyao, the international glass company that occupies the former space that GM once owned.

Filmed from February 2015 until the end of 2017, Reichert and Bognar were granted filming access by Fuyao at both their Ohio and Chinese plant locations. They were inspired to make this film as the events they aimed to depict were taking place in the same Moraine Assembly plant once occupied by General Motors, which was the central topic of their 2009 documentary The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant.

It was not until the editing process that the filmmakers decided to centralize the experiences of workers themselves during the Fuyao plant take-over, which they describe as the "beating heart of the story".

The Mandarin Chinese language portions of the film were facilitated by the inclusion of two Chinese filmmakers, Yiqian Zhang and Mijie Li, one or both of whom would travel to Ohio monthly. The directors accredit these two as essential in providing a connection to the Chinese subjects depicted in the film.

The former president offers congratulations to the team who made the documentary.

Glad to see American Factory’s Oscar nod for Best Documentary. It’s the kind of story we don’t see often enough and it’s exactly what Michelle and I hope to achieve with Higher Ground. Congrats to the incredible filmmakers and entire team!

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) January 13, 2020

The documentary is directed by Yellow Springs natives Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert. They chronicle the legacy of Fuyao and its owner Cao Dewang.

Dewang brought hope to the post-industrial city.

Yellow Springs couple Julia Reichert and Steve Bognar directed American Factory. This is the second Academy Award nomination for Reichart. Her first documentary The Last Truck: Closing Of A GM Plant was nominated for an Oscar.

GM Truck and Bus Manufacturing closed in 2008 at the peak of the recession. It employed over 30,000 worker in its peak years. It was located in the suburb of Moraine.

The documentary is a fly-on-the-wall in which no dialogue external to the subjects of the film is included, and the sounds of the factory and the dialogues of the workers are prioritized.

They were granted access to workers who wanted to share their lives on film.

Barack and Michelle Obama are the first political couple to be nominated for an Oscar.

The company that produced the movie Higher Ground is owned by the Obamas.

The Obamas continue to shine even out of office.

After the film’s screening at Sundance, the film garnered positive reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 96% based on reviews from 55 critics, with an average of 8.51/10. The site's consensus reads: "American Factory takes a thoughtful – and troubling – look at the dynamic between workers and employers in the 21st-century globalized economy." On Metacritic it has a weighted average score of 86 out of 100 based on 20 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".

David Edelstein of New York Magazine wrote: "It’s a great, expansive, deeply humanist work, angry but empathetic to its core. It gestures toward the end of the working world we know – and to the rise of the machines." Eric Kohn at IndieWire wrote that it's "A fascinating tragicomedy about the incompatibility of American and Chinese industries."

The film was on a short list of movies that were sure to be nominated.