A BREAD FACTORY

Hailed as "a major new work by a singular American artist" by The New York Times, A Bread Factory is the latest feature from acclaimed filmmaker Patrick Wang (The Grief of Others, In The Family). Presented in two parts, and featuring a stellar cast (including an amazing Tyne Daly), it is a wondrous, inventive and outright dazzling film about a community arts center, aptly named the Bread Factory, in a small upstate town called Checkford that appears to be at the center of some major social and cultural changes.

In part one, after 40 years of running The Bread Factory, Dorothea (Daly) and Greta (Elisabeth Henry) are suddenly fighting for survival when a celebrity couple—performance artists from China—come to Checkford and build an enormous complex down the street catapulting big changes in their small town. 

Part two revolves around rehearsals for the Greek play Hecuba. But the real theatrics are outside the theater where the town has been invaded by bizarre tourists and mysterious tech start-up workers.

“Critic’s Pick! A major new work by a singular American artist. A Bread Factory has an immense cast, a deliberate pace and thematic ambition to spare — but it also has a ground-level, plain-spoken modesty that renders it hypnotic.” 

– Bilge Ebiri, The New York Times

“The most original filmgoing experience of the year. As of this writing, I've seen both parts three times. With each viewing, I notice new things and am more moved by the characters. This film is miraculous, and we are lucky to have.” 

– Matt Zoller Seitz, RogerEbert.com

“Endlessly warm, playful and lovable. Suggests the work of Richard Linklater, Christopher Guest, Robert Altman and Edward Yang. The film is utterly singular, though, the kind of work that will become a point of comparison itself.”

— Alan Scherstuhl, LA Weekly

“A mighty cinematic force. The distinctive premise of Patrick Wang’s A Bread Factory, is matched by the audacity and the originality with which he realizes it.” 

– Richard Brody, The New Yorker

“A richly absorbing portrait of a community theater at a crossroads. A wondrously moving, thoughtful and inventive new movie. Wang is an unusually gifted and criminally undersung talent.” 

– Justin Chang, LA Times

“A lovably oddball, ticklish and moving tapestry about the struggle to save a beleaguered community arts center… features a bitingly funny Janeane Garofalo. There’s nothing else out there like Patrick Wang’s A Bread Factory, and that’s wholly a good thing.” 

– Robert Abele, The Wrap

“A richness and complexity that rival Robert Altman at his best.”

– Frank Scheck, The Hollywood Reporter