“American Factory,” the local documentary that won an Academy Award on Sunday night, benefited from an Ohio tax credit program that has both its fans and critics.
The Ohio Motion Picture Tax Credit, started in 2009, delivered a $119,500 tax break to the producers of “American Factory” — a film made by Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar of Yellow Springs. In April, Barack and Michelle Obama’s production company, Higher Ground, and Netflix acquired the film, which follows the creation of a Chinese-owned auto glass factory in the same plant that once housed a General Motors assembly operation in Moraine.
Bognar said the tax credit was crucial to the film.
“The story just went past the budget and so at that point, we said, wow, we should apply for the Ohio tax credit. And that made a big difference in that it allowed us to keep following the story until its logical, organic conclusion as opposed to some arbitrary cut off based on running out of money,” said Bognar. The program helped Bognar and Reichert hire more than 15 Wright State University film school alumni, he said. See more here.
