In 2022, a documentary crew came to Oak Creek, Wisconsin to film the people who make America’s flags.
What happened next brought Eder Flag’s employee-owners, stitchers, makers, immigrants, refugees, and longtime craftspeople to a national audience — and helped tell a story most people never get to see.
The result was The Flagmakers, a National Geographic Documentary Films short documentary that turned the camera toward the people behind one of America’s most recognizable symbols. In 2023, the film won Outstanding Short Documentary at the 44th Annual News & Documentary Emmy Awards.
What Is The Flagmakers?
The Flagmakers is a documentary about the people who make the American flag at Eder Flag in Oak Creek, Wisconsin.
The film was directed by Cynthia Wade and Sharon Liese, with Giannis Antetokounmpo among its executive producers. It follows the employees inside Eder’s factory as they cut, sew, assemble, and ship American flags while reflecting on what the flag means to them personally.
The central question of the film is simple but powerful: who is the American flag for?
Inside that question is a much larger story about work, identity, belonging, immigration, service, pride, and the complicated beauty of American symbolism.
For Eder Flag, the film captured something that has always been true inside the company: flags are not made by machines alone. They are made by people.
You can learn more on Eder’s dedicated page for The Flagmakers documentary.
Why Giannis Antetokounmpo Got Involved
Giannis Antetokounmpo’s connection to The Flagmakers gives the film an even broader human dimension.
Known around the world as an NBA champion, Giannis is also the son of immigrants. His own story is shaped by family, opportunity, national identity, and the meaning of belonging. That made him a natural fit for a film exploring how people from different backgrounds relate to the American flag.
The flag can mean many things at once. For some, it represents service. For others, it represents opportunity. For others, it carries grief, complexity, hope, sacrifice, or unfinished promise.
The Flagmakers does not flatten those meanings. It lets them sit together.
That is part of what makes the film resonate. It is not only about the flag as an object. It is about the people who make it, and the many American stories stitched into it.
Inside the Eder Flag Factory
Most people see the finished flag.
They do not see the cutting tables, fabric rolls, sewing stations, thread, inspection, packaging, shipping, or careful work required before a flag reaches a home, school, business, stadium, government building, cemetery, or public square.
The Flagmakers changes that.
Inside Eder’s Oak Creek factory, the film shows the physical process behind the American flag. It brings viewers closer to the materials, the movement, the repetition, and the skill involved in making something that millions of people recognize instantly.
There is precision in the work. There is rhythm. There is pride.
The stars and stripes may be familiar, but the process behind them is often invisible. The documentary makes that process visible — not as a manufacturing tour, but as a portrait of the people whose hands help create the symbol.
The People Who Make the Flags
The heart of The Flagmakers is not the machinery or the facility. It is the people.
The film introduces viewers to employees with different backgrounds, beliefs, histories, and relationships to the American flag. Some were born in the Midwest. Some came to the United States as immigrants or refugees. Some carry memories of war, displacement, or political conflict. Some see the flag through personal service, family, faith, work, or community.
Together, they make one of the country’s most recognizable icons.
That contrast gives the film its emotional force. The American flag is often spoken about in broad national language, but inside the factory, it becomes personal. It is cut by a person. Sewn by a person. Inspected by a person. Packed by a person. Sent out into the world by a person.
Eder Flag is also employee-owned, which adds another layer to the story. The people making the flags are not just employees inside the business. They are participants in its future.
That matters. When someone has ownership in the company, the work carries a different kind of accountability. Quality is not abstract. Reputation is not abstract. Every finished flag reflects the people behind it.
Eder has written more about how employee ownership shapes quality and customer experience, a theme that appears naturally throughout the documentary.
The Emmy Award — What It Meant
For a flag manufacturer in Wisconsin, having a documentary filmed inside the factory was already meaningful.
Seeing that story recognized on a national stage made it even more significant.
In 2023, The Flagmakers won Outstanding Short Documentary at the 44th Annual News & Documentary Emmy Awards. The ceremony took place on September 28, 2023, at Palladium Times Square in New York City.
That recognition brought attention not only to the film, but to the people and craft behind American flag manufacturing. It validated a story that is easy to overlook: the country’s most familiar symbol is made through skilled work, human judgment, and daily commitment.
For Eder’s team, that recognition was not just about publicity. It was about being seen.
Manufacturing work is often invisible to the people who benefit from it. The Flagmakers gave viewers a rare opportunity to pause and consider the hands behind the product — especially a product as emotionally and historically charged as the American flag.
What the Documentary Got Right About American Manufacturing
The Flagmakers works because it does not treat manufacturing as background.
It treats it as the story.
American manufacturing is not only about output, volume, efficiency, or supply chains. It is also about knowledge passed from one worker to another. It is about quality standards. It is about materials. It is about problem-solving on the production floor. It is about people who know when something is right because they have done the work for years.
That is especially true with flags.
A flag has to look right, fly right, hold up outdoors, and represent something larger than the fabric itself. That requires care at every stage.
The documentary also shows that American manufacturing is not one single story. It includes people from many backgrounds who bring different experiences to the same shared work. At Eder, that work happens around the American flag — a symbol that means something slightly different to every person who touches it.
That is not a weakness. It is the point.
Where to Watch The Flagmakers
The Flagmakers is currently available to stream on Disney+.
For people interested in American manufacturing, immigration stories, employee-owned companies, documentary filmmaking, or the symbolism of the American flag, it is worth watching.
For Eder Flag, the film remains a meaningful chapter in the company’s history. It captured the people behind the product, the complexity behind the symbol, and the pride behind a craft that has been part of Eder’s story for generations.
To learn more about the company featured in the film, visit Eder Flag’s About page.
