We have a different kind of program today, focused on just one person, filmmaker Julia Reichert. She died Thursday night at her home in Yellow Springs. She was 76 years old and had been fighting an incurable cancer since 2018. She was born and raised in New Jersey, and came to to study at Antioch College, attracted by the college’s coop program in the late 60s.
Her film career started at Antioch and lasted more than 50 years and included 5 documentaries about working class labor struggles: Union Maids, Seeing Red, The Last Truck, American Factory and 9to5 the Story of a movement. She won four Academy Award nominations, 2 prime time Emmys and numerous career achievement awards.
Reichert was known as the godmother of American independent film, a mentor to generations of young filmmakers, and a professor of film at Wright State University for 26 years.
WYSO’s Neenah Ellis interviewed Julia Reichert a year ago, just before The Neon in Dayton screened a retrospective of her career. In a wide ranging conversation, while Reichert was in treatment at the James Cancer Hospital in Columbus, she talked about her her life and her films and the values that inspired her. career and life – especially her early years - when she got her start in media at WYSO.
Included in today's program are; Jonathan McNeal with The Neon in Dayton, Lois Vossen with PBS, and Tonia Davis, head of television and film for Higher Ground Productions.
