Oscar-winning documentarian Julia Reichert passes away at 76

She has so far received four Academy Award nominations and one win, two Primetime Emmys, a Director's Guild Award and two Peabody Awards nods

By ANI

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Photos: AP
Photos: AP

Published: Sat 3 Dec 2022, 1:50 PM

Veteran documentarian Julia Reichert, who won an Oscar in 2020 for her feature American Factory, passed away at the age of 76 due to cancer.

The news of her death was confirmed by Variety.

According to Variety, across a career spanning more than 50 years as a filmmaker, Reichert received four Academy Award nominations and one win, two Primetime Emmys, a Director's Guild Award and two Peabody Awards nods.

Her documentaries, including the Oscar-nominated Union Maids, Seeing Red: Stories of American Communists, and The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant addressed issues of gender, class, race, and the world economy.

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In addition to American Factory — which Reichert and her partner Steven Bognar shared as the best documentary feature — Dave Chappelle: Live in Real Life, 8:46, 9to5: The Story of a Movement, Making Morning Star, Sparkle, The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant, and A Lion in the House were some of their other collaborations.

Following a brief leave of absence to hitchhike to California in the late 1960s, Reichert — who was born and reared in Bordentown Township, New Jersey — graduated from Antioch College in 1970 and published her debut documentary, Growing Up Female, in 1971. This documented the Women's Liberation Movement, especially the socialisation of women at various stages of their life. In 2011, the Library of Congress chose it for the National Film Registry.

She received two more nominations in 1984 and 2010, but it wasn't until 2020 that she finally won the Oscar for American Factory, a film about the cultural clash that occurs when a Chinese corporation reopens a closed GM facility in Moraine, Ohio. It had its world premiere at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, where it received the best director award for a US documentary. It was subsequently chosen by Netflix and Higher Ground Productions (owned by the Obamas) as the company's first acquired title.

Following that, she and Bognar worked on two projects with comedian Dave Chappelle — 8:46, a highly-praised performance special on the death of George Floyd, as well as the unreleased Dave Chappelle: Live in Real Life, a documentary documenting the comedian's appearances at the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter demonstrations.

Reichert spent 28 years teaching film production at Wright State University, in addition to being a filmmaker.

According to Variety, Reichert is survived by Bognar, daughter Lela Klein Holt, three brothers, two grandchildren, and a nephew.


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