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Mitchell Block, Oscar-Nominated Documentarian, Dies at 73

He wrote and directed 'No Lies,' was a producer on ‘Poster Girl,’ ‘Big Mama’ and ‘The Testimony’ and served for years on the Academy’s documentary screening committee.

Block was a consultant for Sheila Nevins at HBO for about a decade, and he received his Oscar nom (shared with director Sara Nesson) for producing the network’s Poster Girl(2010). Earlier, he was an executive producer on the Oscar-winning short documentary Big Mama(2000), about Viola Dees, an 89-year-old woman fighting to retain custody of her rebellious 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), revolving around survivors of Soviet labor camps, were shortlisted for Academy Awards.

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