Who was Julia Reichert? Tributes pour in as Oscar-winning documentarian passes away at 76
American filmmaker Julia Reichert passed away at the age of 76 after a lengthy battle with urothelial cancer.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Reichert died on December 1, 2022, at her Yellow Springs, Ohio residence. At the time, she was surrounded by her family and longtime partner, Steven Bognar.
Reichert's career as a documentarian spanned over 50 years and included an Oscar, which she bagged in 2020 for the documentary American Factory. The film is about a Chinese billionaire who runs a deserted GM plant outside of Ohio that makes car windshields. Interestingly, American Factory features Chinese and American workers gelling together in the midst of installing modern technology.
Julia Reichert often collaborated with her husband to make films on sociocultural themes
Born on June 16, 1946, Julia was the daughter of Louis and Dorothy Reichert and a native of Princeton, New Jersey. She graduated from Bordentown Regional High School in 1964 before beginning her career as a documentarian.
In 1971, she and Jim Klein founded New Day Films after they had limited options to distribute films made by and around women. The company operates to date.
Regarded as the "godmother of the indie film industry," Julia began her career with the 1971 film Growing Up Female, which was dubbed “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant” by the Library of Congress's National Film Registry.
Reichert frequently collaborated with her husband, Steven Bognar, and made films on gender inequality, class biases, and middle-class getting impacted by the economy and race. Some of her Oscar-nominated films include Union Maids (1976), Seeing Red: Stories of American Communists (1983), and The Last Truck: Closing of A GM Plant (2009).
In a June 2019 interview with CBC radio, Julia was asked if she always wanted to change the world or be a filmmaker, to which she responded:
“Oh, certainly change the world … That was definitely what was on our minds. I use ‘our’ because we really felt part of a big movement right at that time — the late ’60s into the mid-’70s and beyond.”
She also revealed that she never dubbed herself a filmmaker until others started doing so.
In January 2006, Julia was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and went into remission the same year. However, Stage 4 urothelial cancer was diagnosed again in 2018.
"A filmmaker, class warrior, radical feminist, and mentor": Tributes pour after netizens come to know of Julia Reichert's death
After the news of Julia's death went viral, Twitteratis paid tribute to the celebrated filmmaker's contribution. Several users remembered her activism and vision in documentaries produced, with one calling her a "patriot" for making films that captured "authentic images of 21st century American labor."
Reichert left behind her partner Bognar, daughter Lela Klein Holt, two grandchildren, three siblings, and a nephew.
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Priya Majumdar