Local Filmmaker wins $50,000 grant

Credit: Amelia Robinson

Credit: Amelia Robinson

Three-time Academy Award nominated documentary filmmaker Julia Reichert has another bright feather for her cap.

The Yellow Springs resident is among Chicken & Egg Pictures inaugural Breakthrough Filmmaker Award recipients.

She and four others will recieve a $50,000 unrestricted grant and a year-long mentorship program tailored to their  individual goals.

The other winners are  Kristi Jacobson ("A Place at the Table"), Yoruba Richen ("The New Black"), Elaine McMillion Sheldon ("Hollow") and Michèle Stephenson ("American Promise").

From the announcement:

The Chicken & Egg Pictures Breakthrough Filmmaker Award responds to the reality that only a few women non-fiction directors in the U.S. are able to work full-time as independent storytellers. The program recognizes and elevates five mid-career women directors with unique voices who are poised to reach new heights and to continue to be strong filmmaker-advocates for urgent issues.

Here is  Reichert's bio from the Chicken & Egg announcement:

Julia Reichert is a three-time Academy Award nominee for her documentary work. She lives in Ohio, and has chosen to focus on class, gender, and race in the lives of Americans.  Julia's first film, "Growing Up Female," was the first feature documentary of the modern Women's Movement.  It was recently selected for the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress.  Her films "Union Maids" and "Seeing Red" were nominated for Academy Awards for Best Feature Documentary, as was "The Last Truck," a short (co-directed with Steven Bognar) which premiered at the Telluride Film Festival and on HBO.  Her film "A Lion in the House" (an ITVS co-production, made with Bognar) premiered at Sundance, screened nationally on PBS, and won the Primetime Emmy for Exceptional Merit in Nonfiction Filmmaking.  She co-wrote and directed the feature film "Emma and Elvis."  Julia is co-founder of New Day Films, the independent film distribution co-op.  She is author of "Doing It Yourself," the first book on self-distribution in independent film, and was an Advisory Board member of IFP. Reichert is currently directing a film about the 9 to 5 movement, telling the stories of the millions of low wage, invisible women who populated the clerical pool, served coffee, and suffered sexual harassment before it was named.  In the 1970's they gathered their courage and rose up against their bosses, large corporations, and institutions.  She's also begun filming a verite follow-up to "The Last Truck," chronicling the arrival of a new plant in her economically devastated Midwestern city.

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