Obamas-Backed Netflix Documentary 'The Factory' Wins Oscar

Barack and Michelle Obama's production company Higher Ground won an Oscar Sunday night for ‘The Factory’. The Netflix film won an Oscar for the best feature-length documentary about a Dayton, Ohio auto glass factory run by a Chinese investor. It explores many issues, including the rights of workers, globalization and automation.

Barack Obama in a tweet Sunday congratulated the filmmakers “for telling such a complex, moving story about the very human consequences of wrenching economic change. Glad to see two talented and downright good people take home the Oscar for Higher Ground’s first release.”

‘American Factory’ directors Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert tackle the complex topic of wrenching economic change, but with a twist. Chinese industrialist Cao Dewang comes to America, employing about 2,200 American auto workers merging their culture with the 200 Chinese workers operating side by side.

Reichert noted that her film is about an Ohio plant but it could be from anywhere “people put on a uniform, punch a clock, trying to make their families have a better life. Working people have it harder and harder these days. We believe that things will get better when workers of the world unite.”