Jon Blair

Jon Blair is a South African born writer, producer and director of documentary films, drama and comedy who has lived in England ever since he was drafted into the South African army in the late 1960s.

His two most notable documentary films related to events which occurred during the Holocaust. The first of these "Schindler: The Documentary" (1984) told the true story of Oscar Schindler and won a British Academy Award for Best Documentary that year. Ten years later the documentary was used as a research resource for Steven Spielberg's Oscar winning film "Schindler's List"

His 1995 film "Anne Frank Remembered" was a documentary which attempted to present the story of Anne Frank as the record of a historical figure, rather than the fictionalized version of her story as related through the films which had preceded it. In making the film, Blair filmed in actual locations such as the "Achterhuis" (where the family lived in hiding) in Amsterdam, as well as Westerbork and Auschwitz Concentration Camps. He collaborated with Miep Gies, the woman who had helped shelter the Frank family, and who had saved Frank's diary. The film won an Academy Award for Documentary Feature as well as an International Emmy and an International Documentary Association Award for Best Documentary amongst others.

He won a Grammy Award in 1987 in the Best Concept Music Video category for producing the "Land of Confusion" video by Genesis.

In 2005 Blair won a further Emmy for his series "Reporters at War".

He was also one of the originators and producers of the cult British comedy series "Spitting Image".

External links

References

* [http://www.sonyclassics.com/annefrank/crew/blair.html Sony classics biography]
* [http://www.sonyclassics.com/annefrank/misc/interview.html Sony classics interview with Jon Blair]