John Block (filmmaker)

American documentary filmmaker

John Block

Born|

John Simeon Block

1951

Chicago, IL, U.S.

Occupation| filmmaker

John Simeon Block is an American documentary filmmaker.

## Career

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John Block, a native of Chicago, is a 1972 graduate from Northwestern University. In 1977 he obtained a Master of Fine Arts in filmmaking from the New York University. From 1980 until 1983 he worked for WCBS and then came to NBC in 1983. Initially he was a "Special Segment" producer for the NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw. In 1990 he became a producer/writer for Real Life with Jane Pauley and in 1991 a producer/writer for the Brokaw Reports. From 1992 until 2009 Block was a producer/writer for Dateline NBC.[1]

Since 2010, Block has been an independent producer and filmmaker.

Block's subjects cover a wide spectrum of social issues and problems including poverty, homelessness, medical issues, broken families, drugs, crime, and education. He has also made videos for educational and medical support programs.

## Personal life

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Block resides in Montclair, New Jersey with his wife Maria. They have three children.[2]

## Awards

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* 1981 Guggenheim Fellowship[3]
* 10 nominations and 3 Emmy Awards

## Selected filmography

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* The Sixth Week (1978), "Best Documentary", Student Academy Awards of the Academy of Motion Pictures
* 1981-82 Daytime National Emmy for work on children series
* Class Photo (1995), Dateline NBC, a documentary about the fate of 21 of 25 Afro-American youths from Bedford-Stuyvesant twelve years after their fourth-grade class picture,[4] duPont-Columbia Award
* Miracle on the Hudson (2007), at Dateline NBC documentary, Emmy Award
* New Orleans Rising (2010), a CNN documentary
* Different is the New Normal (2011), about a young man with Tourette syndrome, Emmy nomination[5]
* The Stand-In (2011), a personal documentary about elder care and the undocumented with a premiere on PBS.[6]
* Sounding the Alarm: Battling the Autism Epidemic (2014), a documentary about raising a child with autism, presented at the Nantucket Film Festival[7] and the Tribeca Film Festival
* The One That Got Away (2016), a documentary about a promising at-risk youth who went to jail. Preview at the 2015 Montclair Film Festival and premiere at PBS.[8]
* Breslin and Hamill: Deadline Artists (2019), an HBO documentary about two journalists from New York City, Jimmy Breslin and Pete Hamill,[9] 2020 Emmy Award for Outstanding Historical Documentary.[10]

## References

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1. ^ New York Times: John Block
2. ^ John Block (February 13, 2008). "Who gets to propose the next time?". Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved November 20, 2015.
3. ^ Guggenheim Fellow: John Block
4. ^ Walter Goodman (July 24, 1995). "TELEVISION REVIEW; Those Lucky Few Youngsters Who Escape Tragic Streets". New York Times. Retrieved November 20, 2015.
5. ^ Robert Channick (November 8, 2011). "A different kind of documentary.Homegrown portrait of area student with Tourette syndrome on cusp of national exposure". Chicago Tribune. Archived from the original on January 27, 2012. Retrieved November 20, 2015.
6. ^ Kathleen O'Brian (June 17, 2013). "Fathers and sons explored in Montclair filmmaker's PBS documentary". NJ Advance Media, NJ.com. Retrieved November 20, 2015.
7. ^ Nantucket Film Festival, 2014
8. ^ "New Documentary The One That Got Away Examines the Life of an At-Risk-Youth Monday, September 12 at 9:30 p.m. on THIRTEEN". PR Newswire. August 31, 2016. Retrieved November 16, 2016.
9. ^ HBO: Breslin and Hamill Deadline Artists, January 2019
10. ^ Montclair University press release, September 2020

## External links

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* John Block at IMDb