General Motor’s assembly plant in Moraine, Ohio, produced a new SUV every 58 seconds and won awards for quality and efficiency. But on December 23, 2008, GM closed the plant down, leaving 2,500 workers stunned and sad. The Last Truck was filmed during the plant’s final weeks as workers swapped stories and memories as they prepared to drive out of the employee lot for the last time. Interviewed on bar stools, in the front seats of cars, and inside the factory itself, they describe an American business made not of steel and bolts but of proud men and women. These are people who can remember the exact date of their first day on the job and for whom shutting down the plant is like losing a loved one. For acclaimed filmmakers Steve Bognar and Julia Reichert, who live near the plant, economics is unmistakably personal and local, and in shooting the last truck as it rolls down the line they have preserved an important moment in the history of their community.  RYS

Thematic Program Panel following screening with filmmakers Stewart Bird (The Wobblies), Stephanie Black (H-2 Worker), Heather Courtney (Los Trabajadores), Vicky Funari (Live Nude Girls UNITE!), Micha X Peled (China Blue), Gordon Quinn (Taylor Chain), and George Stoney (The Uprising of ‘34), moderated by curators Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert.