Excerpt from the Los Angeles Times
Labor issues have been a primary focus for documentary filmmakers Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar. The couple, partners in work and life, have not had to look far for subjects. They live near Dayton, Ohio, in the heart of the postindustrial Midwest, the so-called Rust Belt where decades of economic decline hit a new low in the aftermath of the 2008 recession.
They captured the deep sadness of that moment in the 2009 HBO short “The Last Truck: The Closing of a GM Plant,” which received an Academy Award nomination (Reichert’s third) for its glimpse at the final days of the Moraine Assembly automobile factory.
But the story had another chapter. The filmmakers returned to the plant in 2015 to chart its revival as a Chinese-owned glass factory, shooting more than 1,200 hours of footage over three years to make the complex and volatile “American Factory.”
“It’s only a short drive from our house to get to the plant,” Reichert said. “But we never thought we’d go back in there again.”
The space, which the filmmaker describes as bigger than the Pentagon, was a dream to shoot in. “Those very bright lights that everyone is bathed in, as they inspect the glass, and you see their reflections, you see people passing glass from hand to hand, stacks of glass and beautiful reflections … we were dazzled by that. The first number of times we went in, we just filmed for the beauty of it.”
Thanks to their long and deep associations in the area, the filmmakers were able to get extraordinary access to the factory and its employees and staff and could maintain creative independence from the Chinese corporation Fuyao and its chairman, billionaire Cao Dewang.
Amid so much optimism around the plant’s resurgence, Reichert and Bognar had no idea of the twists ahead. But seasoned and resourceful observers that they are, they sensed the potential.
“The rivalry between China and the United States is one of the big stories of the 21st century,” Reichert said. “How was that going to play out on the factory floor, and with management and with the chairman flying over from China every six to seven to eight weeks? What was that going to look like?”
In “American Factory,” it looks like an age-old culture clash, with American workers scrutinized through the lens of a punishing Chinese work ethic, amid rising tensions over productivity, profit, safety and, most divisive of all, a campaign to unionize. The Chinese workers, a minority at the factory, gamely struggle to feel at home in the Ohio suburbs, forging bonds with American counterparts they can’t always understand.
Editor's Note: The winners of the fourth annual Critics' Choice Documentary Awards were announced on Sunday, Nov. 10. Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert (American Factory) tied for the best director's award with Peter Jackson (They Shall Not Grow Old). American Factory also won the award for best political documentary.
