Every year, the Librarian of Congress names 25 motion pictures that are at least 10 years old and register as “culturally, historically or aesthetically” significant.
For a filmmaker to get one of their films in the registry is an honor. “Growing Up Female” (1971), which Yellow Springs filmmaker Julia Reichert made with her future husband, James Klein, a classmate at Antioch College in Ohio, was selected by the Library of Congress for the National Film Registry in 2011.
Julia, who won an Academy Award for “American Factory,” a documentary feature about the Chinese takeover of a shuttered automobile plant in Dayton, Ohio, died December 1st after a 4 and 1/2 year fight with cancer.
According to her partner Steven Bogner, “Julia was told, shortly before her death that UNION MAIDS would be added to the National Film Registry, joining Julia and Jim’s debut film GROWING UP FEMALE on this prestigious list of historically significant works of American cinema. She was grateful and proud.”
The Oscar-nominated “Union Maids,” one of nine documentaries were chosen this year, told the story of three female union workers in the 1930s.
“For the longest time, women’s voices, especially working-class women’s voices, were not respected let alone heard,” co-director Julia Reichert, who died earlier in December from cancer, wrote in a statement. “Documentaries presented men as the experts, the historians, the authorities. We hoped this film would just show you how vital, wise, funny and essential these women’s voices were and are, to the struggles of working people to get a better deal.”
In 2015, James was named one of two film fellows in the state by the North Carolina Arts Council. She is the producer and editor of Althea, a feature documentary about pioneering tennis icon Althea Gibson, which was the season opener for PBS’ prestigious American Masters series in September 2015.
Private Violence, James is a graduate of the M.A. program in documentary film and video at Stanford University, where she produced and directed four award-winning short documentaries. Her thesis film, Net Loss, was awarded the Nicholas Roosevelt Award for Environmental Journalism. Her other short films include Flaunt, Worms at Work and Precipice, a national finalist for the 2002 Academy Award in the student documentary category. Other recent credits include producer of The Good Fight and co-producer of The Lord God Bird.
