Julia Reichert Obituary

Julia Reichert was a documentary filmmaker, activist, and feminist who won an Academy Award.

Julia Bell Reichert grew up in Bordentown Township, New Jersey. Reichert graduated from Bordentown Regional High School in 1964.

She earned a degree in documentary arts in 1970. She was one of the co-founders of New Day Films. Reichert’s career as a documentary director and producer spans more than 50 years.

Reichert received four Academy Award nominations for her work on Union Maids (1977), Seeing Red: Stories of American Communists (1984), The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant (2010), and American Factory (2020, which won the Oscar).

She was a two-time Primetime Emmy winner, a two-time Peabody Award nominee, and the director of a film on the National Film Registry.

Reichert received the Labor and Working-Class History Association’s Distinguished Service to Labor and Working-Class History Award (LAWCHA).

Julia Reichert died of urothelial cancer on December 1, 2022. She was 76 years old. Reichert died Thursday night in her home in Yellow Springs, Ohio, surrounded by family, according to her partner and frequent filmmaking collaborator Steven Bognar.

Reichert, who was diagnosed with Stage 4 non-lymphoma Hodgkin’s in January 2006 and went into remission that year, was diagnosed with Stage 4 urothelial cancer in April 2018.