Jim Klein has been an active member of the independent film movement since the early 1970s. He is a founder of the pioneering film distribution co-operative New Day Films and active in the filmmaker organizations that shaped the field. With partner, Julia Reichert, he created such innovative documentaries as Growing Up Female, the first documentary about women from a feminist perspective, which was selected for the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress; Academy Award nominee Union Maids, one of the first oral history films; and Academy Award nominee Seeing Red, a challenging film about American communists. His films Letter to the Next Generation and Taken for a Ride both had national broadcasts on PBS’s flagship POV series.