Director took a stoic path to Oscar
Documentarian soldiered through awards season with terminal cancer
Filmmakers and actors often complain about how gruelling the awards campaign trail can be, with a seemingly never-ending carousel of film festivals, screenings, press junkets and glad-handing.
But for Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar, the co-directors and life partners behind Oscarwinning documentary “American Factory,” the last13 months have proven gruelling in a very different way.
Reichert has had to juggle film commitments while undergoing chemotherapy for terminal cancer, making for a bittersweet awards season.
“Honestly, it’s been very rough,” the 73-year-old says, talking by phone from L.A. on the eve of the Oscars. “If I didn’t have Steve and my daughter when I’m back home, I don’t even think I’d be alive today, let alone could I have gotten through this.”
The Ohio-based filmmaker was granted a six-week break from her intensive chemotherapy treatment to attend awards ceremonies in New York and L.A., where “American Factory” has won trophy after trophy. But the pace has taken its toll.
“Very often when we are staying at a fancy hotel and there’s some party or some screening, basically I’ll stay in bed the whole day,” she says. “I won’t even go out. And then I’ll get dressed and go to the party and come home and just lay right back down in bed. It’s been like that for months.”
And though she praises her Netflix team for their patience — “really nice hotels, always sending cars, any kind of support if I have to cancel something” — it hasn’t diminished the challenge of promoting the film. “It’s nothing I would ever recommend to anybody,” Reichert says, “going through awards season on chemo.”
This isn’t the first time Reichert has faced the illness. Her daughter, Lela, is a survivor of childhood cancer. And Reichert and Bognar spent a tough six years co-directing “A Lion in the House,” their 2006 documentary that follows kids with leukemia.
Still, she manages to find some gallows humour in her current state of affairs.
“I have no hair, so that makes it a lot easier getting ready for the Oscars,” she jokes. “And Steve has no hair either, because he has alopecia, so we look bald as eggs.”
The acclaim for “American Factory” has been richly deserved and long in the works. Having begun filming in 2015, the film documents the culture clash that occurs when a Chinese entrepreneur takes over a shutdown General Motors factory in Dayton, Ohio. The reopening of the factory — as a windshield manufacturing plant — offers a ray of hope to the town’s many struggling families.
After the GM plant closed, “people lost a lot,” Reichert reflects. “People lived in their cars. People lived under bridges. Some people’s kids dropped out of college because they had to work to help the family.”
The workers’ optimism at being re-employed proves shortlived, however, as the new plant’s opposition to unionization; low hourly wages and challenging work conditions soon become apparent. “It’s a microcosm not just for America, but for working people around the world,” says 56year-old Bognar. “The automation threat is not limited to the States. Global capitalism is squeezing working people like never before.”
The film premiered at last year’s Sundance Film Festival, where it won the top directing prize and caught the eye of streaming giant Netflix, along with Higher Ground Productions, the film company set up by former president Barack Obama and Michelle Obama.
The directors were naturally stunned when told that the Obamas wanted to acquire their doc to be the launch title for their new film imprint. However, there was some trepidation about attaching the former commander-in-chief ’s name to the movie.
“We wanted to make a film that was nuanced, fair, thoughtful and not partisan,” says Bognar, “a film that would be watched by conservatives and progressives. And we were a bit concerned that, by aligning with Higher Ground, maybe that would say, this is a blue film, not a red film. Or it’s not a purple film.
“But in the year since, Netflix has told us that many viewers from small towns and rural communities have watched the film, more so than they expected,” he adds. “So any kind of concerns we had about appearing partisan seem minor. And we were so grateful to the president and the first lady for wanting to take the film on, because we knew it would be big.”
Reichert adds that, beyond championing the film, the Obamas delivered support on a personal level. “As I’ve been sick, they’ve each sent me handwritten letters which, like, really makes my whole week,” she says.
The 44th president took to Twitter Sunday night to congratulate the duo “for telling such a complex, moving story about the very human consequences of wrenching economic change,” adding that he was “glad to see two talented and downright good people take home the Oscar for Higher Ground’s first release.”
And the Oscar win comes after the film received huge acclaim throughout 2019 as it played festivals and streamed on Netflix globally.
In Canada, Reichert had a retrospective of her work shown at Toronto’s Hot Docs festival last spring and, in January, “American Factory” was named top documentary by the Toronto Film Critics Association. The movie also claims a Canadian connection via its coproducer Yiqian Zhang, who “moved from China to Toronto a few years ago and really loves the city,” Bognar says.
“American Factory” offers a sophisticated and chilling vision of the looming challenges facing North America’s working class in the face of automation and globalization. But the good cheer, modesty and graciousness with which Reichert and Bognar have approached awards season has almost certainly played a significant role in their path to Oscar.
Even as she took to the stage to accept her trophy Sunday, Reichert’s first words were to praise her “sister and brother documentarians,” who have risked their lives “bringing stories to us about hospitals being bombed in Syria, about Brazil, about Macedonia,” she said. “We were so proud; we are inspired by you guys.”
Her victory, on her fourth appearance at the Oscars, comes 42 years after she was first nominated for 1976’s “Union Maids,” which she co-directed with former partner Jim Klein.
The couple were nominated again for 1983’s “Seeing Red,” before Reichert landed her third nomination for 2009 short doc “The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant,” which she co-directed with Bognar.
After more than five decades spent chronicling the lives and challenges of Midwestern America’s working class, her Academy Award is richly deserved.
As awards season draws to a close, the couple now have a few weeks to catch their breath before heading to Texas for the world premiere of their next film, “9to5: The Story of a Movement,” which launches at Austin’s SXSW Festival before a likely Canadian premiere at Hot Docs in the spring.
The film chronicles the 1970s movement that saw secretaries in Boston form a grassroots collective to fight for change in the workplace, challenging low pay, sexist working conditions and the lack of opportunity.
“My cancer is fatal,” she says. “I know it’s going to end my life. But in a way, that helps me refocus on what’s important. As soon as this whole award season is over and our next film is out in the world, I really just want to do what brings me joy in my life every day.”
“American Factory” is streaming on Netflix.