Excerpt from the Dayton Daily News
The Yellow Springs Film Festival and PNC Bank are seeking to support a new generation of female filmmakers by establishing the Julia Reichert Award for Emerging Female Documentarians.
The Julia Reichert Award is a $3,000 short film prize. The winner will be announced during a special event that will take place Oct. 5 at The Little Art Theatre. Submissions are open now and will close on midnight June 26.
“A tireless advocate for women’s rights, worker’s rights and mentor to a legion of documentarians, Reichert’s influence and generosity cultivated a global network of social crusaders who continue to shape the documentary genre today,” noted organizers in a press release.
Reichert died Dec. 1, 2022 at age 76 having battled a rare form of terminal cancer for four and a half years. For 50 years, along with longtime collaborators Steven Bognar and Jim Klein, she illuminated humanity, particularly America’s working-class, across compelling themes of feminism, family, politics and economics. She was also a Wright State University professor of film production for 28 years.
A longtime resident of Yellow Springs, Reichert received her first Academy Award nomination in 1977 with Klein and Miles Mogulescu for “Union Maids.” She was nominated again with Klein in 1984 for “Seeing Red: Stories of American Communists.” Partnering with Bognar, Reichert’s husband, she received an Academy Award nomination in 2010 for “The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant.” She ultimately won the Oscar in 2020 with Bognar for “American Factory.” She also shared two Emmys with Bognar for “A Lion in the House” (2006) and “American Factory,” which focused on the Chinese-owned Fuyao Glass America windshield plant that opened in the former General Motors factory in Moraine.
