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58 GU I D E to Y E L L OW S P R I NG S | 2O22 – 2O23 — only now, instead of hous - ing GM, the factory housed Chinese company Fuyao. The documentary captured the cultural and political clashes between Chinese workers and supervisors and former GM employees, and their struggles to understand each other and adjust expectations about how to work together. This time, Reichert and Bognar came home with the Oscar: “American Fac - tory” won in the category of Best Documentary Feature in 2019. True to her dedica - tion to bringing the struggles of the working class into the spotlight, upon accepting the award, Reichert said: “Work - ing people have it harder and harder these days, and we believe that things will get better when workers of the world unite.” In 2018, Reichert told the News that, aside from the accolades her work has received, the greatest reward has been the opportunity she’s been given to step inside other worlds when she makes a documentary. “I have the opportunity to learn about all these differ - ent worlds, to be immersed in them,” she said. While all of her films have focused on American topics, “there have been all these different cultures. It’s like a passport, opening doors.” And the work itself is a con - stant challenge, she said. The challenges include finding the narrative within each topic, editing and distilling hundreds of hours of film down to its essence, then distributing the finished film and taking it into the world. At that point, she gets to “see people’s faces as they watch,” she said. “It is all so challenging and so enriching.” IT STARTED AT ANTIOCH A little more than 50 years ago, it would have been improbable to imagine that Reichert would someday be honored by an international body of documentary film - makers. She was a girl from a small New Jersey town who didn’t know anyone who went to college other than her teach- ers and the local doctor. She was the daughter of a man who never finished eighth grade, the butcher at the local grocery. But Reichert was determined to learn, to get out of town, to go to col - lege. On her own when she was in high school, Reichert began sending away for col- lege catalogs, studying them at night before bed. Antioch attracted her because of the co-op program, she said. She’d always made her own money and wanted to continue to do so. And co-op would allow her to see the world. “The whole basis of what I am started right over there,” she said from her Xenia Avenue home, pointing to the Antioch College campus. Reichert arrived at Antioch in the mid-1960s, a heady time with the nascent women’s liberation and anti- war movements energizing and roiling the campus. While Reichert’s family was white working-class Republican, her roommate freshman year was a Jewish woman, whose parents were members of the Communist Party. The two had intense conversations that covered everything, including politics. Initially a Goldwater Republican, Reichert by that fall’s presidential election was passing out pamphlets for Lyndon Johnson. “You switch fast when you hit the big world,” she said. Still, Antioch offered con - ▲ Reichert in 1991. Her first film, “Growing Up Female,” a documentary on the Women’s Liberation Movement, was selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 2011.  KINGS YARD XENIA AVE / RT 68 WanderAndWonderYS.com 937-769-5015 220XeniaAve.Shop3 in Kings Yard, Downtown YS Sustainable & Local Outdoor Lifestyle Clothing & Gear. TUCK -N- REDS SPIRITS & WINES Just like Grandad used to make, but better. Hillbilly Moonshine, Spirits &MountainWines 305 N. Walnut St., Yellow Springs • M–Sa, 1–9 p.m., Su, 1–8 p.m.