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After Oscar-winning American Factory, three more Obama-produced Netflix film projects

  • Oscar winner American Factory was produced by Barack and Michelle Obama’s production company Higher Ground
  • The company is also producing a series set in the world of post-war New York fashion, and a film adaptation of a book about US statesman Frederick Douglass

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A still from Netflix series American Factory, about a Chinese company setting up in a former US car plant in Ohio. The documentary was produced by Barack and Michelle Obama’s film company and won an Oscar on Sunday. Photo: Netflix
Business Insider

Former US president Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama’s production company, Higher Ground, announced last year its first wave of content for Netflix, including documentary series and feature films.

The first of those projects, American Factory, directed by Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar, won the Oscar for best documentary feature on Sunday. Obama tweeted about the victory and congratulated the filmmakers.

“Congrats to Julia and Steven, the filmmakers behind American Factory, for telling such a complex, moving story about the very human consequences of wrenching economic change,” Obama said. “Glad to see two talented and downright good people take home the Oscar for Higher Ground’s first release.”

Netflix acquired American Factory at last year’s Sundance Film Festival and it is currently streaming. Netflix described the documentary as a “deep dive into a post-industrial Ohio, where a Chinese billionaire opens a new factory in the husk of an abandoned General Motors plant”.
A still from Netflix’s American Factory. Photo: Netflix
A still from Netflix’s American Factory. Photo: Netflix

Other projects in the works include a non-fiction series adaptation of Moneyball author Michael Lewis’ Fifth Risk: Undoing Democracy, called Fifth Risk, and a film adaptation of Pulitzer Prize winner David W. Blight’s Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom.

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