Remembering Acclaimed Documentarian Amy Stechler 73F
Hampshire mourns the death of alum Amy Stechler 73F, Emmy-nominated documentary filmmaker and founding member of Florentine Films.
Amy Stechler 73F joined Ken Burns 71F, Buddy Squires 74S, and Roger Sherman 73S in their post-Hampshire plunge into independent documentary filmmaking, and together, in Hampshire fashion, they built on their education through doing.
Squires credits Stechler as an important force in that journey. “It’s really important to understand how instrumental Amy was in developing the signature Florentine style... We were all just sort of making it up as we went along.”
Burns also acknowledges Stechler's central role in Florentine's work: “I don’t think you’d have ever heard of me had she not been there.”
She was credited as a writer and producer on the Oscar-nominated Brooklyn Bridge, the 1981 documentary that was Burns’s first major directing credit and the first major project of Florentine Films. Additionally, Stechler was producer and co-director with Burns on The Shakers: Hands to Work, Hearts to God (1984), writer on the Oscar-nominated The Statue of Liberty (1985), and consultant on The Civil War (1990).
Following a two decade break from filmmaking, during which time she became a painter, Stechler went on to produce and direct her own Emmy-nominated documentary, The Life and Times of Frida Kahlo (2005).
Stechler was married to Burns from 1982 to 1993, with whom she had two children, and to Rod Thibeault. In addition to her daughters, she is survived by her partner, Bill Patterson; a sister, Nancy Stechler Gawle; and five grandchildren. She died on August 26 at the age of 67.
All quotes are from the full obituary in the New York Times.
Read the full obituary at The New York Times.
Photo courtesy of The New York Times via Ken Burns.
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