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Documentary filmmaker and 2020Academy Award-winner Julia Reichert has died from urothelial cancer. She was 76.
On Friday, Reichert’s partner and frequent film collaborator Steven Bognar confirmed toThe Hollywood Reporterthat Reichert died Thursday night in her home in Yellow Springs, Ohio, with her family present.
Reichert and Bognarwon an Oscar for Best Documentary (Feature)for their 2019 filmAmerican Factory, which was one of four Academy Award nominations Reichert received during her career.
The filmmaker attendedthe Oscarsin February 2020 even while she underwent chemotherapy and took the stage with Bognar to accept their award for their movie, which centers on a “Chinese billionaire who reopens an abandoned GM plant outside Dayton, Ohio,” according toTHR.
“Just being in the presence of our sister and brother documentarians, who risk their lives making stories, bringing stories to us about hospitals being bombed, about Brazil — we are so proud, we are inspired,” Reichertsaid during her acceptance speechfor the award at the time.
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“Our film is from Ohio and China, but really could be from anywhere where people put on a uniform, punch a clock, trying to make their families have a better life,” Reichert added in her speech. “Working people have it harder and harder these days. We believe things will get better when workers of the world unite.”
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The Library of Congress inducted Reichert’s first movie, 1971’sGrowing Up Female, into its National Film Registry for being “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant,” according toTHR.
Reichert’s most recent work included an untitled documentary about comedianDave Chappelle, which premiered at Tribecas Film Festival in May 2021, according toVulture.
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The movie focused on Chappelle’s town in Ohio “during the early days of the pandemic” and captured events surrounding the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020, as well as 49-year-old Chappelle’s outdoor, socially distanced comedy shows he put on near his Ohio home in 2020, according to the outlet.
In January 2020, Reichert toldTHRthat her illness was terminal and that winning an Oscar at the time “would be extremely meaningful after four nominations and my age and my state of life. It would be very meaningful.”
source: people.com
