Mitchell Block Dead: Oscar-nominated documentarian was 73

Mitchell Block, the Oscar-nominated director and documentarian who was behind such powerful films as Girl poster, Big mama And The testimony, is dead. He was 73 years old.

Block died Thursday evening of natural causes at his home in Eugene, Oregon, said his daughter, Anja Block. The Hollywood Reporter.

Block consulted for Sheila Nevins at HBO for about a decade, and he received his Academy Award nomination (shared with director Sara Nesson) for producing the network’s film. Girl poster (2010). The 38-minute film follows the struggles of Robynn Murray, who battled PTSD after returning from the Iraq War.

Previously, he was executive producer of the Oscar-winning short documentary Big mama (2000), about Viola Dees, an 89-year-old woman who fights to retain custody of her wayward grandson, Walter.

Two other short documentaries he worked on, The testimony (2015), about the largest rape trial in the history of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Women of the Gulag (2018), which revolves around survivors of Soviet labor camps, was shortlisted for the Academy Awards.

Beginning in 1980, Block served for many years on the Academy’s Documentary Selection Committee, which selects documentaries shortlisted for the Academy Awards.

In February 1990, a group of 45 filmmakers filed a protest with the Academy after Michael Moore’s decision. Roger and I, a critical and commercial success, was not given a documentary name. They saw a conflict of interest in the fact that three of the films that received a nomination were distributed by Block’s Direct Cinema Ltd. (The final winner, Common Threads: Quilting Storieswas distributed by Direct Cinema.)

Block denied any conflict of interest, stating The New York Times that he filed a conflict of interest declaration with the Academy every year. “I am not permitted to vote, attend the screening, or participate in any discussion of any film in which I have a conflict of interest,” he said. said.

Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, Block graduated from the Hun School in Princeton in 1968, received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, and studied at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles.

At NYU he wrote, directed and produced … No lies (1973), a 16-minute cinema vérité style film about a rape and its aftermath, selected for preservation by the National Film Registry in 2008. (In 2016, critics interviewed by IndieWire named him one of the 10 best short films ever made.)

He launched Direct Cinema in 1974 and the films released by the company have garnered 25 Academy Awards out of 76 nominations.

Block also co-created and executive produced Carrierwhich takes place on the nuclear aircraft carrier USS Nimitz, and its one-hour companion, Another day in paradise. Both aired in 2008 on PBS.

His resume included that of 2008 Stealing America: Vote by Votedouble winner South by South-West 2014 Ship2018 The Lost City of the Monkey God2021 Surviving sex…