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Uta Briesewitz, the German cinematographer who landed her first U.S. break shooting the pilot of HBO’s The Wire, has stepped into feature directing with American Sweatshop. Before turning to long-form drama she directed episodes of Severance, Westworld and Stranger Things, experience that shapes her new film’s boxed-in visual language. The thriller premiered in March in SXSW’s Narrative Spotlight strand and, on 8 June, closed the Lighthouse International Film Festival on New Jersey’s Long Beach Island.

Filmed at Mmc Studios in Cologne and on Bonn streets during the 2024 summer break, the production received €400,000 from the Film- und Medienstiftung Nrw. Producers Barry Levinson and Tom Fontana partnered with Elsani Film and Baltimore Pictures, while Plaion Pictures will oversee German theatrical release. Matthew Nemeth’s script follows Daisy, a low-paid content moderator driven to hunt for the source of a violent online video that she cannot erase from her mind.

Brainstorm Media has acquired North American rights to the social media thriller “American Sweatshop,” starring Lili Reinhart, TheWrap can exclusively reveal. The film, which premiered at SXSW, marks the feature directorial debut of Emmy-nominated filmmaker and cinematographer Uta Briesewitz (“Severance”) and will be released later this year.

Written by Matthew Nemeth (“City on a Hill”), “American Sweatshop” follows Daisy Morris (Reinhart), a young woman working in the world of online content moderation. Alongside a team of co-workers, she spends her days reviewing harmful and disturbing media uploaded to social platforms. When one violent video takes hold of her, Daisy becomes obsessed with uncovering its origin, leaving the safety of her screen behind and descending into a dangerous real-world mystery.

The cast of the film also includes Daniela Melchior (“Road House”), Josh Whitehouse (“Daisy Jones and the Six”) and Joel Fry (“Game of Thrones”). The movie marks Briesewitz’s first feature...

Even in the relatively regulated world of the contemporary internet, you never know what the person next to you is looking at on their phone: Fascist propaganda? Hardcore pornography? Photos from a church picnic? So it goes that the gray, featureless office building that gives “American Sweatshop” its title looks like it could be anything. The only sign that something is off here is the on-site counselor — and the employees vomiting and crying and having rage-filled tantrums at their desks.

Content moderation is a well-documented phenomenon, first brought to widespread public attention by Adrian Chen’s 2014 “Wired” article “The Laborers Who Keep Dick Pics and Beheadings Out of Your Facebook Feed.” The headline there says it all: Around the world, a silent army of low-wage workers manually review flagged content on social-media sites to determine whether or not it violates the site’s terms of service. In practice, this means...

Barry Levinson, director of Best Picture winner Rain Man (for which Levinson also won the Best Director Oscar), is producing a mystery thriller called American Sweatshop with Oz showrunner Tom Fontana, and Deadline reports that Riverdale, Look Both Ways, and Hustlers star Lili Reinhart has been cast in the lead role.

Emmy nominee Uta Briesewitz, whose previous credits include Stranger Things, The Wheel of Time, Westworld and This Is Us, is set to direct the film from a screenplay by Matthew Nemeth (City on a Hill).

In a device driven world, American Sweatshop will take a look at the toll of social media through the eyes of Daisy Moriarty (Reinhart), who while dealing with a chaotic personal life, finds herself sucked into the underbelly of the internet. Moriarty, and a motley group of coworkers, toil in a cottage industry of agencies that evaluate harmful and offensive pictures and videos uploaded to social media.

Lili Reinhart (“Riverdale”) is leading the cast of an upcoming thriller titled American Sweatshop, with Deadline reporting that the film will explore the dark side of the internet.

“In a device driven world,” Deadline details, “American Sweatshop will take a look at the toll of social media through the eyes of Daisy Moriarty (Reinhart), who while dealing with a chaotic personal life, finds herself sucked into the underbelly of the internet.

“Moriarty, and a motley group of coworkers, toil in a cottage industry of agencies that evaluate harmful and offensive pictures and videos uploaded to social media. With detached caution and a deranged sense of humor, they examine the millions of posts that get ‘flagged for review.’

“But one particularly violent video grabs hold of Daisy, luring her out of this office, away from the safety of her keyboard and into a dangerous world as she obsessively seeks to hold someone accountable.

Exclusive: Riverdale and Hustlers star Lili Reinhart is set to lead mystery thriller American Sweatshop, whose producers include Oscar winner Barry Levinson (Rain Man) and acclaimed American showrunner Tom Fontana (Oz) who will be producing his first feature.

Myriad Pictures will be launching international sales in Cannes after sealing a deal with Baltimore Pictures and Germany-based Elsani & Neary. UTA Independent Film Group is handling North American sales.

In a device driven world, American Sweatshop will take a look at the toll of social media through the eyes of Daisy Moriarty (Reinhart), who while dealing with a chaotic personal life, finds herself sucked into the underbelly of the internet. Moriarty, and a motley group of coworkers, toil in a cottage industry of agencies that evaluate harmful and offensive pictures and videos uploaded to social media. With detached caution and a deranged sense of humor, they examine the millions of posts that get “flagged for review.

Exclusive: Germany has long been a powerhouse in football (aka soccer), winning four World Cups between 1954 and 2014. Now the country is developing a taste for American football.

Germany’s got its own American football league, the Gfl. Among the teams are the Munich Cowboys (not to be confused with the Dallas Cowboys), the Berlin Rebels, the Dresden Monarchs, and from a small town near Munich, the Schwäbisch Hall Unicorns. When we say small, consider this: Green Bay, Wisconsin, home of the NFL’s Packers, is more than twice the size of Schwäbisch Hall.

These overachieving underdogs are the subject of the new documentary Unicorn Town, directed by Nick Alfieri, a college football player himself who attended the USC film school before he suited up to play for the Unicorns in Germany. Deadline can report Gravitas Ventures, a unit of Anthem Sports and Entertainment, has acquired worldwide rights to the documentary.