American Factory

Winner – Best Documentary Feature, Academy Awards, 2020

Cultures collide in this Academy Award winner, also the first film acquired by Barack and Michelle Obama’s production company, Higher Ground Productions. When a Chinese billionaire opens a new factory in the husk of an abandoned General Motors plant in post-industrial Ohio and hires 2,000 blue-collar Americans, early days of hope and optimism give way to setbacks as high-tech China clashes with working-class America. “[Filmmakers Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert] deftly illustrate a mix of East-West cultural and ideological differences that play out in the effort to get this new factory off of the ground, giving us a glimpse of not only how local workforces might be forced to adapt to the whims of increased foreign investment in the US, but, just as urgently, of how and whether those investors, who hold the power, will adapt in turn” (Vanity Fair).

In English & Mandarin with English subtitles.

Join producer Yiqian Zhang and co-director Steve Bognar for a post-screening Q&A, moderated by Hot Docs Cinema programmer David Knipe.

Tickets: FREE