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THE FLAGMAKERS Documentary Stage Musical Adaptation In the Works

The film follows the workers at the employee-owned Eder Flag in Oak Creek, WI, the country's largest American flag and flagpole maker.

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Wisconsin sews and ships five million American flags worldwide every year. Oak Creek based Eder Flag is at the center of a new documentary titled "The Flagmakers."

https://www.milwaukeemag.com/tag/the-flagmakers/

An Oak Creek flag manufacturer is the focus of a locally set documentary that will have its hometown premiere on Thursday night at the Oriental Theatre. The Flagmakers, from National Geographic Films, is the story of employee-owned Eder Flag, which sews and ships five million American flags per year from its Rawson Avenue factory.

Academy Award-winning director Cynthia Wade and award-winning director Sharon Liese are the creative forces behind the documentary, while Milwaukee Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo receives a credit as an executive director. 

Evelia, Vasilika, Raheela, and Hazarah sew and fold flags; Photo by Womyn Films LLC/Heidi Gutman

Eder Flag’s 200-person workforce is comprised of locals, immigrants and refugees, who stitch the stars and stripes as they wrestle with identity and belonging.

It was Liese who first heard of a sewing program for refugees and immigrants in Kansas City, where she resides. One of the participants of the program landed a job at a flag factory in Kansas City, so Wade and Liese thought they had the setting for their planned film, but the company refused to give them access to the plant.

“So, we went on a nationwide search and found Eder Flag,” Wade said. “Sharon originally talked to Jodi Goglio, the chief operating officer, and I went to Milwaukee and in the spring of 2019 and had a really great conversation with her and asked if we could make a documentary. She took a risk and said yes and over the course of three years, on and off and through a pandemic, a film was born.”

The genesis of the film stemmed, in part, from Wade’s conflicting feelings about the American flag.

“I felt that by 2019, for me, the flag had been co-opted and quick frankly weaponized by a certain group that had a very particular affiliation,” she said. “If you put that sticker on your car or the flag on your porch, you were signaling a certain set of values.”

At the same time, Wade recalled with the fondness joyous Independence Day celebrations as child.

“Growing up, the Fourth of July was my favorite holiday,” she said. “When my kids were young, they were in the Fourth of July parades and loved flying the flags. So why was it that I was having complex feelings about the American flag and also feeling increasingly uncomfortable? It’s my flag, too. So, it really came from a place of exploring my relationship with the flag. Through the immigrants and refugees and Midwestern locals at Eder Flag, we explored not just their relationship with the flag but with the vast complex, diverse, contradictory, wonderful and sometimes troubling country we live in.”

Eder Flag employs workers who immigrated to the United States from countries such as Afghanistan, Burma, Morocco, Nigeria, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Serbia, Albania, Cuba, Pakistan and Iraq.

https://films.nationalgeographic.com/the-flagmakers

From National Geographic Documentary Films, Academy Award-winning director Cynthia Wade, award-winning director Sharon Liese and executive producer Giannis Antetokounmpo, THE FLAGMAKERS poses one of today’s most pressing questions: who is the American flag for? Employee-owned Eder Flag in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, sews and ships five million American flags a year. The flagmakers — locals, immigrants and refugees — stitch stars and stripes as they wrestle with identity and belonging. Sewing manager Radica, a Serbian immigrant, believes every flag has a soul. Ali, a war survivor from Iraq, is learning how to use a sewing machine after arriving in the United States just 90 days prior. Midwestern-born Barb’s genuine friendships with her immigrant co-workers belie her staunchly conservative beliefs. SugarRay, a Black man born and raised in Milwaukee, reflects on his complicated relationship with this country. Each considers: What does the American flag represent in a changing nation and world, and for whom? THE FLAGMAKERS is an intimate glimpse into the people whose hands make America’s most recognizable icon.