Screening of "American Factory"

Thursday, March 5, 2020 - 5:45pm

Where: Monroe County Public Library

American Factory is a 2019 American film that just won the Academy Award for best feature-length documentary, by directors Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, about Chinese company Fuyao's factory near Dayton, Ohio.  Filmed from  2015 through 2017 at the company’s Ohio and Chinese plant locations, this is the first film produced by and Barack and Michelle Obama's production company, Higher Ground Productions.  It tracks how a Chinese billionaire bought a shuttered General Motors factory and transformed it into what is now the largest complex in the world producing automotive safety glass, with 2,300 American and 200 Chinese workers.  Filled with stark beauty and pain, the story picks up from “The Last Truck,” the directors’ film about the thousands of workers stranded by GM’s 2008 plant closure.

The film crew took advantage of access to anguished meetings with injured employees, close-ups of angry managers and bewildered workers trying to learn not only how to make glass but how to communicate.  It provides a startling glimpse into the global economic realignment playing out across the country.  This showing is part of a nationwide social impact campaign that aims to seed a conversation around the dignity of work for all people and to broaden demand for a future of work that benefits everyone. 

The 110-minute film will be followed by discussion.  Pizza and light refreshments will be available.

Sponsored by Indiana University’s Department of Labor Studies and Center for the Study of Global Change, and South Central Indiana Jobs With Justice.  Thanks also to Democratic Socialists of America and YDSA.

Free Parking at IU Poplars Parking Garage, one block away, 415 East Sixth Street, Bloomington, after 5:00 pm.   For additional information, contact Sarah Bailey at 812-855-9084, or Prof. Lynn Duggan lduggan@indiana.edu.