“I am so excited and grateful because Julia’s story is going to be all over the world,” Bognar said. “Her story, her voice, is going to be translated into 60 different languages. This film was a real labor of love and also an act of grieving because I was missing her. I got to hear her voice and see her face in photos and archival home movies. Working on the film was a way for me to cope with the loss.”
He has been working on the film for a year and a half, fully determined to make sure the end result was worthy of the couple’s pedigree.
“I made this film alone but Julia and I always had high standards,” Bognar said. “I’ve been crafting it to the best of my abilities without her but it really is our final collaboration. It’s her voice in the film telling her story and with her writing. She wrote it and she’s the narrator. We kind of made the film together but I’m finishing it on my own.”
A longtime Yellow Springs resident, Reichert died Dec. 1, 2022, at 76 after battling a rare form of 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.
“Her family documented a lot,” Bognar said. “There were a lot of photos and home movies of her childhood on the New Jersey shore and road trips across America, which was great and helped me to tell her story.”
Reichert grew up in Bordentown Twp., New Jersey, and was a 1964 graduate of Bordentown Regional High School. She graduated in 1970 from Antioch College with a degree in documentary arts. In addition to serving as professor emeritus of film production at Wright State, she co-founded New Day Films and Indie Caucus, an advocacy group ensuring the sustainability of documentaries on PBS. She also won the International Documentary Association’s Career Achievement Award in 2018.
Throughout the creation of “Julia’s Stepping Stones,” Bognar was inspired once again by Reichert’s determination to carve her own path.
“I was struck by her courage,” Bognar said. “Julia found a way to create a life for herself when no one had any expectations of or for her. No one in her family had been to college. Her dad was a butcher in a grocery store. She dreamed of having a life beyond just being a secretary, getting married and having kids. She not only dreamed but took action toward those dreams. She found a way to get to college. She discovered WYSO, radio storytelling and photography. And little by little she went into filmmaking.”
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, 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.
Additional credits include “Sparkle” (2012), “Making Morning Star” (2015) and “9 to 5: The Story of a Movement” (2020). Most recently she and Bognar profiled the career of comedian Dave Chappelle in “8:46″ (2020) and “Dave Chappelle: Live in Real Life” (2021).
Credit: Chris Pizzello
Credit: Chris Pizzello
“Julia’s Stepping Stones” received its local premiere in July at The Neon but will be seen in its final, polished form Oct. 5 as part of the second annual Yellow Springs Film Festival. Following the screening, the festival will present the inaugural Julia Reichert Award to an emerging female documentarian who will be given $3,000 to help bring their next project to life.
“Julia sharing her story into a microphone is the foundation of this movie,” Bognar said. “It’s very meaningful to be working on it and it’s very meaningful it’s going to have a worldwide platform.”
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