Excerpt from the Dayton Daily News
A local couple had a very big weekend in Utah.
Steve Bognar and his partner Julia Reichert, a Wright State University professor emeritus, picked up the U.S. documentary directing award for their film “American Factory” at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival in Park City.
Now Netflix is on the verge of buying the world rights to “American Factory,” according to Deadline.
Hollywood Reporter says the deal for the “culture-clash documentary” is just south of $3 million.
In addition, “Clemency,” a film by former assistant professor of motion pictures at Wright State Chinonye Chukwu, won the U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic at Sundance.
“Clemency” centers around a prison warden as she prepares to carry out the execution of a death-row inmate.
“American Factory” is set inside Fuyao Glass America in Moraine.
The film’s description on Sundance’s website reads:
In post-industrial Ohio, a Chinese billionaire opens a new factory in the husk of an abandoned General Motors plant, hiring two thousand blue-collar Americans. Early days of hope and optimism give way to setbacks as high-tech China clashes with working-class America.
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Reichert and Bognar received an Academy Award nomination in the “Best Documentary (short subject)” category for their 2009 HBO film “The Last Truck” about the closing of that very same GM plant in Moraine.
