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Barack and Michelle Obama are the move!
After announcing their partnership with streaming company, Netflix, The Obama’s company Higher Ground Productions just recently released its list of programs.
“We created Higher Ground to harness the power of storytelling. That’s why we couldn’t be more excited about these projects,” Barack Obama said in a statement. “Touching on issues of race and class, democracy and civil rights, and much more, we believe each of these productions won’t just entertain, but will educate, connect, and inspire us all.”
All together Higher Ground has seven projects in the works with Netflix – two documentaries, four series and one feature film about abolitionist Frederick Douglass.
Here’s an early look at the shows and films the Obamas are planning:
■ “American Factory,” a documentary that examines life in Ohio where a Chinese billionaire opened a factory in a former General Motors plant and hired 2,000 people. Higher Ground Productions described the film, produced by Participant Media and directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, as “early days of hope and optimism give way to setbacks as high-tech China clashes with working-class America.” The documentary was already shown at the Sundance Film Festival, and Higher Ground Productions said it would be its first release.
■ “Bloom,” a drama series set in post-World War II New York that will explore the “barriers faced by women and by people of color in an era marked by hurdles but also tremendous progress.” It will be produced by Callie Khouri, who wrote “Thelma & Louise.”
■ A film adaptation of “Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom,” the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography by David W. Blight. Higher Ground did not announce a screenwriter or any producers.
■ An adaptation of a New York Times series, called “Overlooked,”about people whose deaths were previously not reported by the newspaper. The obituaries have been published in a recurring feature in the paper. Higher Ground Productions said it would be a scripted anthology series.
■ A series based on “The Fifth Risk: Undoing Democracy,” a book by Michael Lewis.
■ “Crip Camp,” a documentary film about the origins of the disability rights movement.
■ “Listen to Your Vegetables & Eat Your Parents,” a half-hour series for preschoolers that will “take young children and their families around the globe on an adventure that tells us the story of our food.”