Freida Lee Mock
Illustration — Freida Lee Mock at the Sundance Film Festival Freida Lee Mock is an American filmmaker, director, screenwriter and producer. She is a co-founder of the American Film Foundation with Terry Sanders. Her documentary, Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision (1994) won an Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary in 1995.
Freida Lee Mock
Crop by Anetode - photograph by atp_tyreseus / Jere · Cropped from Frieda Lee Mock at Queer Brunch by Anetode and uploaded to English Wikipedia as Frieda Lee Mock.png · CC BY 2.0
- Born
- 2000
- Nationality
- United States
- Occupation
- screenwriter · film producer · film director
- Education
- University of California and Berkeley
- Honours
- Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film
VALÉORINE Encyclopedia
VALÉORINE documentary reading
Documentary summary
Illustration — Freida Lee Mock at the Sundance Film Festival Freida Lee Mock is an American filmmaker, director, screenwriter and producer. She is a co-founder of the American Film Foundation with Terry Sanders. Her documentary, Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision (1994) won an Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary in 1995.
Admitted source layer · organised and presented by VALÉORINE
Note VALÉORINE
No house-authored Note is published until its assertions and sources pass the VALÉORINE evidence contract. The documentary article remains available in full while that enrichment is being consolidated.
Documentary enrichment in progress · no unsupported statement published
Reference Check
Propose documentary evidence for Freida Lee Mock. A contribution is never written directly as fact: identity, source, rights and evidence gates still decide.
Sign in to contribute
World of VALÉORINE
Documentary connections
Only confirmed graph relationships appear here. Images are shown only when their identity and reuse rights both pass the documentary gate.
Documentary evidence
Evidence Panel
identity unresolved · checked 25 September 2026
- Identity
- unresolved
- Independent source families
- 0
- Admitted assertions
- 0
- Open conflicts
- 0
Authority files
wikidata · Q950808 · wikipedia · Freida Lee Mock
In this article
Background
Background
Mock was the first Governor of the Documentary Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. She received her bachelor's degree from the University of California, Berkeley, where she studied both History and Law.
Director
Director
Mock directed a documentary Anita, about Anita Hill, which premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. She has directed the documentaries G-Dog (2012), Sing China! (2009), Wrestling With Angels (2006) (which screened again on the TV show P.O.V. in 2007) a documentary feature about playwright Tony Kushner, Bird by Bird with Anne (1999; which screened again on the PBS TV show Independent Lens in 2003) about author Anne Lamott, Return with Honor (1998; which screened again on the TV show The American Experience in 2000), Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision (1994), and the documentary shorts Lt. Watada (2011), Sing! (2001; about a Los Angeles community children's choir and which was also an Academy Award nominee for Best Documentary Short Film in 2002), and various episodes of the TV show Screenwriters: Words Into Image in 1982, including episodes on the screenwriters Robert Towne, Carl Foreman, Neil Simon, Eleanor Perry, Paul Mazursky and William Goldman, all done in 1982 (the series was also a Primetime Emmy Award nominee for Best Series).
Producer
Producer
Mock's production credits include many of the documentaries she directed, such as Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision, Sing!, Bird by Bird with Annie, Wrestling With Angels, G-Dog, Lt. Watada, Sing China! and Return with Honor, which was also presented by Tom Hanks. Early in her career, Mock produced episodes of the TV show National Geographic Specials and Untamed Frontier. She has also produced the documentaries Rose Kennedy: A Life to Remember (Academy Award nominee for Best Documentary Short in 1991), To Live or Let Die (Academy Award nominee for Best Documentary Short in 1983), and Never Give Up: The 20th Century Odyssey of Herbert Zipper about Vienna-born composer and musician Herbert Zipper that was also an Academy Award nominee for Best Documentary Short in 1996. She also produced the Lillian Gish: The Actor's Life for Me (which won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Information Special in 1989). Mock produced "The Kennedy Center Honors" biographies, which honors individuals for lifetime achievement in the performing arts -- Frank Sinatra, James Stewart, Katherine Dunham, Virgil Thomson, Elia Kazan and others (the series was also a Primetime Emmy Award Winner for Best Variety Special).
Selected filmography
Selected filmography
• Sing! • Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision. Academy Award Winner, Best Feature Documentary Film, 1995. • Never Give Up: The 20th Century Odyssey of Herbert Zipper • Rose Kennedy: A Life to Remember • Return with Honor, presented by Tom Hanks • To Live or Let Die • Bird by Bird with Annie. A Film Portrait of Writer Anne Lamott • G-DOG • Anita: Speaking Truth to Power • Ruth: Justice Ginsburg in Her Own Words
Identity
Identity
Freida Lee Mock is recorded as having received Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film.
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
The full dated record · 1 entries
2000
Freida Lee Mock born.
Awards and accolades
Mock has received an Academy Award (for her film Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision), five Academy Award nominations (for films she either directed or produced), two prime-time Emmy Awards, and three prime-time Emmy Award nominations. The Maya Lin award was mired in controversy as acclaimed films such as Hoop Dreams failed to receive a nomination. Film critic Roger Ebert also suggested that the nomination of Maya Lin stemmed from cronyism as Mock was the chair of the committee which makes the nominations (though she stepped aside for the year that Maya Lin was under consideration), and was thus close friends with many of the committee members. Mock denied that the nomination in any way stemmed from cronyism and hired an attorney to respond to the press criticism. Ebert and his associate Gene Siskel publicly apologized to Mock after seeing Maya Lin, with Ebert saying "I think it's a good film and deserved to be nominated.", but other prominent critics such as Janet Maslin maintained that while Maya Lin was a good film it was clearly outshone by documentaries such as Hoop Dreams and Crumb which were passed up for nomination. Mock is the recipient of grants from organizations such as the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the American Film Institute, Women in Film, the Robeson Fund and numerous foundations in support of her film projects.
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
reference work
Partially resolvedreference work
Partially resolved
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 28 August 2026.
Elsewhere in Film memorabilia
37,225 published records in this field, each with its sources named.
- Fredrik LindströmPerson
- Fredrikke NielsenPerson
- Freema AgyemanPerson
- Freeman GosdenPerson
- Freida PintoPerson
- French StewartPerson
- Frenchie DavisPerson
- Freya KlierPerson
Best supported in this field
For owners
Own a work by Freida Lee Mock?
A specialist will read what you send and tell you what the house can establish, what it cannot, and whether the object is suited to sale. There is no charge and no obligation. The object stays with you throughout; nothing is shipped to us unless it is arranged in writing beforehand.