Award-winning documentary movie on the Detroit bankruptcy has its streaming debut

The award-winning documentary “Gradually, Then Suddenly: The Bankruptcy of Detroit” is finally available for streaming.

The thorough, insightful look at the Motor City’s Chapter 9 bankruptcy filing in 2013 uses an innovative combination of animation, interviews and reenactments to capture the whole story.

“Gradually, Then Suddenly” won the 2021 Library of Congress Lavine/Ken Burns Prize for Film. In 2022, it was a highlight of the Freep Film Festival.  

Among those involved in the making of the film were directors Sam Katz and James McGovern; producer and screenwriter Nathan Bomey, a former Free Press reporter now covering business for Axios and the author of “Detroit Resurrected: To Bankruptcy and Back); and producer Chastity Pratt (another former Free Press reporter and the current Washington Post national education editor).

The score was composed by Daniel Slatkin, son of former Detroit Symphony Orchestra music director Leonard Slatkin.

The documentary will have its streaming premiere Thursday, to coincide with the bankruptcy filing’s 11th anniversary. You can find it on Amazon, Google Play, YouTube, Tubi and a variety of other streaming platforms.

Contact Detroit Free Press pop culture critic Julie Hinds at jhinds@freepress.com.