Mitchell Block

Mitchell Block (born c. 1950) is an American filmmaker, primarily producing documentaries. His The Testimony was short listed for a 2015 Academy Award.[1] His 2010 film Poster Girl was also nominated for Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject). He was executive producer for the film Big Mama for HBO in 2000, and it won an Academy Award for a documentary short.

Early life and education

Block was born about 1950. He attended the Hun School of Princeton, graduating in 1968. He earned bachelor's and master's degrees in fine arts from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, where he majored in television and film production. He earned an MBA from the Columbia Business School.[2]

Career

Block began to work in television and film. He became particularly interested in documentaries. He established his own company, Direct Cinema, of which he is president. It produces and distributes films.

Since 1980, Block has been on the 40-person Documentary Screening Committee of the Academy Awards. They nominate the short list of finalists for awards.[3]

Conflict of interest claims

In 1990, a group of 45 film makers filed a protest to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences over a potential conflict of interest involving Block. They noted that Block was a member of the Documentary Steering Committee, which selects films as nominees, but he had a conflict of interest because his company Direct Cinema owned the distribution rights to three of the five films selected that year as nominees for best documentary feature. They noted that Michael Moore's Roger & Me was omitted from the nominees, although it had been highly praised by numerous critics and was ranked by many critics as one of the top ten films of the year.[3]

Works

Block produced the documentary The Testimony (2015), which chronicled the 2014 Minova Trial in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It was short listed for a 2015 Academy Award.[4] His 2010 film Poster Girl was also nominated for Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject). He was executive producer for the film Big Mama (2000), which won an Academy Award for a documentary short.

Among the films and documentary series that Block has conceived, created and produced are Carrier and Another Day in Paradise, both of which were broadcast on the Public Broadcasting Service and the National Geographic Channel internationally.[2] Carrier received an Emmy Award in 2009 for Best Cinematography in a prime time series.

In 2008, Block's short film No Lies (1973) was selected for the National Film Registry by the Librarian of Congress. The other films so far selected from films produced in 1973 are: American Graffiti, Badlands, Enter the Dragon, The Exorcist, Frank Film, Mean Streets and The Sting.[5] Only a handful of the 550 films on the registry (as of 2011) are short films made by students. In 2016, film critics for the website IndieWire selected No Lies as one of the ten best short films ever made.[6]

Personal life

Since 1978, Block has been an adjunct professor at the School of Cinematic Arts of the University of Southern California. He teaches in the Peter Stark Producing Program.

His moving image collection of Direct Cinema/Mitchell Block is held at the Academy Film Archive.[7]

References

  1. ↑ "10 DOC SHORTS ON OSCAR'S 2015 SHORTLIST". 2015-10-26. Retrieved 2016-08-30.
  2. 1 2 Staff. "Mitchell Block ’68 film Poster Girl Nominated for an Oscar" Archived 2011-02-08 at the Wayback Machine., Hun School of Princeton, January 26, 2011. Accessed March 6, 2011.
  3. 1 2 Collins, Glenn. "Film Makers Protest to Academy", The New York Times, 24 February 1990. Accessed March 6, 2011.
  4. ↑ "10 DOC SHORTS ON OSCAR'S 2015 SHORTLIST". 2015-10-26. Retrieved 2016-08-30.
  5. ↑ Films Selected to the Library of Congress National Film Registry 1989-2010."Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2013-05-24. Retrieved 2014-02-02.
  6. ↑ Ehrlich, David (July 25, 2016). "What Is The Best Short Film Ever Made? — Critics Survey". IndieWire. Retrieved September 12, 2016.
  7. ↑ "Direct Cinema/Mitchell Block Collection". Academy Film Archive.
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