PBS documentary filmmaker, Natalie Reuss, shares her story

• Aniya Faulcon
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  Aniya Faulcon is The Spark Host/Producer for WITF. She has a passion for shining a light on unique people, experiences, and perspectives within the community.
  
  Previously she worked as the People and Social Trends Reporter/Video Anchor for LancasterOnline | LNPNews. During her time there, she created video packages, provided Facebook Live coverage at community events, and wrote data-driven stories with census data and feature stories on local leaders, non-profit organizations, events, and people with unique talents and experiences within Lancaster County.
  
  Aniya also worked at WMAR ABC 2 News as a Sales Assistant and at the AFRO American Newspapers as an Executive Assistant and Media correspondent. Aniya interned at WEAA Gospel Grace 88.9 and worked at her alma mater’s radio station, WWPJ at Point Park University, where she gained skills and a passion for radio.
  
  Aniya grew up in Baltimore, Maryland and attended the Baltimore School for the arts for high school with a concentration in acting. She continued to hone her skills and passion for storytelling and later graduated from Point Park University in 2018 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Acting and Broadcast Reporting. Aniya is eager to continue her journey with storytelling in her role with WITF, as she aims to shed a light on real people and real stories within Pennsylvania in a variety of mediums.

movie camera on the slider in the backlight from the window, the rays of the sun in a smoky room

Airdate: December 15, 2022

Natalie Reuss, has produced several award-winning PBS documentaries over the course of her thirty year career.

Some of her PBS producer credits include Atlantic Records: The House That Ahmet Built and the Emmy award-winning films, Proud to Be A Girl and Out of the Darkness: Women and Depression.

For the past decade, she’s been producing and directing her own feature-length documentary film, CIVITA, about an ancient Italian hill town, Civita di Bagnoregio, that sends a warning that la citta che muore is threatened by landslides, erosion and the footprint of international tourism that steadily erases the ancient hill town’s culture and story.

Reuss joined us on The Spark Thursday to discuss her story, career, and passion behind her work.

Reuss started her filmmaking career around the age of fifty when she went to film school. She said, her age was an obstacle to starting her career.

“That was somewhat surprising to many people in society,” Reuss said. “I was also a single mother, so I had to also be working. I went to the New School for Social Research, which is a wonderful place to learn documentary filmmaking and I got to do that a lot at night so that I could both work and and make films.”

When Reuss began producing films for PBS, her films showed her passion for women empowerment.

According to a career expert survey, almost 72% of filmmakers are men and about 28% of filmmakers are women. Also, diversity in the filmmaking field is tremendously lacking. 71% of all filmmakers are white, about 13% are Hispanic or Latino and 7% are Black.

“Women’s role and diversity are essential to making important, wonderful documentary films; to tell the truth, to expose the real history, to reveal the poetry of people’s lives who are different than your own,” Reuss said. “It’s pretty tough to be a woman in filmmaking… If you look at who in Hollywood wins the Oscars, you don’t see very many women. I think that some of that is changing and people really welcome that change. And so, I’m hoping that the (data) changes by the next time I talk to you.”