Obamas' first film charts life in US factory under China bosses

"They refer to us as the foreigners," says a downbeat employee at the Ohio car glass factory where hundreds of Chinese labourers have come to work, far from their wives, children and homeland.

But the worker in question is American, not Chinese, and is finding life very different under new management after billionaire "Chairman Cao" swept into town to reopen the shuttered, iconic former General Motors factory in 2014.

This is "reverse globalisation," say Oscar-nominated directors Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, who filmed the GM plant's closure in 2008 and returned to chronicle its reopening by Fuyao corporation for the documentary "American Factory."
"He'd seen our earlier film and liked it, and so he took a chance on us," he added, referring to 2009's "The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant."
"You're getting a slice of what globalization really looks like on a human level," said Reichert, adding: "I think the film leaves you with a sense of unease."
"We saw that coming, being in Ohio -- the enthusiasm, the yard signs," said Reichert. "Hillary Clinton was not well liked."