Mitchell Block, Oscar nominee for documentary “Poster Girl,” dies at age 73 – Action News Jax

EUGENE, Oregon – Mitchell Block, who was nominated for an Oscar for his work in the 2010 documentary “Poster Girl,” died May 30. He was 73.

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Block died at his home in Eugene, Oregon, his daughter Anja Block told The Hollywood Reporter.

At the time of his death, Block was a professor of documentary and film studies at the University of Oregon, according to the university’s website.

Block shared directing duties with Sara Nesson on “Poster Girl,” an HBO documentary about Robynn Murray, a sergeant in the Iraq War who struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder after returning from the front lines, IMDb.com reports.

Block was an executive producer on the 2000 documentary “Big Mama,” which won an Oscar for Best Short Documentary. The film, according to The Hollywood Reporter, is about 89-year-old Viola Dees, who fights for custody of her rebellious grandson.

He also worked on “The Testimony” in 2015 and “Women of the Gulag” three years later.

Block, who was born in Cincinnati, earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and a master’s in business administration from Columbia University, according to The Hollywood Reporter. He also studied at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles.

While studying at NYU, Block wrote, directed and produced the 16-minute film “No Lies” in 1973. The film, about a sexual assault and its aftermath, was selected for archiving by the National Film Registry in 2008, the entertainment news website reported.

According to IndieWire, the film was named one of the top 10 short films of all time. “It is fiction forged from absolute truth,” the website wrote.

Before coming to Oregon, Block taught courses in independent film production at the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts from 1979 to 2017, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Block’s survivors include his daughter and son Pieter. His wife Joan died in 2020, according to the entertainment news website.

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