Latest in American Factory

Nominations have been unveiled for the 48th edition of the Grierson Awards, the UK's top documentary awards. A total of 52 films are nominated across 14 categories. Of those, 21 were broadcast on BBC channel, while Netflix has nine nominations and Channel 4 has five.  ITV and Al Jazeera have two apiece whilst…

For more than a year and a half the documentary American Factory has been on the kind of awards run that dreams are made of. It's now in contention for three Emmys, earning nominations late last month for directing, cinematography and editing. At the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, where American Factory premiered, it…

UPDATED with video: Following her Oscar win for American Factory, Julie Reichert joined her fellow director Steven Bognar and producer Jeff Reichert backstage, offering her message to female filmmakers and the entertainment industry at large, as the rare female filmmaker to take home a statuette tonight. For Reichert…

Former President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama, whose production company Higher Ground backed the documentary American Factory, congratulated the film's directors after their Oscar win Sunday in Documentary Feature. "Congrats to Julia [Reichert] and Steven [Bognar], the filmmakers behind American Factory…

The rustbelt rebound story American Factory won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature tonight, earning gold for the first collaboration between Netflix and Barack and Michelle Obama's production company Higher Ground, which produced with Participant Media. Directors Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert and producer Jeff…

When the 2020 Oscar nominations were announced, critics immediately seized upon the glaring lack of women recognized in the Best Director competition. But on the nonfiction side, it's a completely different story. In the Best Documentary Feature category, four of the five nominated films are directed or co-directed by…

While an all-male list of director contenders and a mostly white actors roster caught the eye of the diversity-conscious on Oscar nominations day, another blip signaled deep change within the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. That is, four out of five documentary feature nominees—The Cave, The Edge Of Democr…

When American Factory was announced on Monday as one of the five Oscar nominees for Best Documentary Feature, among the first to congratulate filmmakers Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert were Barack and Michelle Obama. "Glad to see American Factory's Oscar nod for Best Documentary," the former president tweeted. "It's…

It was a good Oscar nomination day for the Obamas as the documentary American Factory earned a was included on the list of nominees alongside The Cave, The Edge of Democracy, For Sama and Honeyland. The original Netflix docu was presented by the Obamas’ Higher Ground Productions and Participant Media and takes a dive…

American Factory took top honors at the 13th annual Cinema Eye Honors recognizing the best in documentary filmmaking, tonight at the Museum of the Moving Image in New York. A portrait of a once-closed Ohio factory bought by a Chinese billionaire, the Netflix release picked up awards for Outstanding Nonfiction Feature…

Filmmakers Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert understand better than most how much things can change in a decade. In 2009 they released their Oscar-nominated documentary short The Last Truck, about the closing of a GM plant in Ohio. In 2019, they returned with American Factory, a feature documenting what happened to…

The Producers Guild of America is out with the nominees for Outstanding Producer of Documentary Motion Pictures at its 31st annual Producers Guild Awards. They are: Advocate, directed by Rachel Leah Jones and Philippe Bellaïche, about Lea Tsemel, a Jewish Israeli lawyer who defends Palestinian political prisoners. Amer…