John Antonelli

For 25 years, John Antonelli, in association with his partner Will Parrinello, has been producing and directing award-winning documentary films for theatrical distribution, cable TV, PBS, syndication, and for an impressive list of corporate clients.

He recently completed “Sam Cooke: Crossing Over” for PBS with funding from the National Black Programming Consortium (NBPC) and the Independent Television Service (ITVS). The film was broadcast in January on the acclaimed PBS series American Masters. The series, with the Cooke documentary as part of the submission, was recently nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Nonfiction Series.

For the past eight years, Antonelli has been producing, directing and writing segments for “Global Focus: The New Environmentalists” – a half hour program narrated by Robert Redford that is broadcast on PBS stations, The Sundance Channel and in a number of international markets. It has won numerous awards at environmental film festivals worldwide including Palermo, Barcelona, Seoul, New Delhi, and Lisbon. 

Other producer-director credits include; “Angle of Inspiration” about Santiago Calatrava’s Sundial Bridge in Redding,  California, “Sumo Basho” about the first American sumo tournament, and “A Yen for Baseball” about the Major League Baseball All Star tour of Japan.

Antonelli produced and directed “Jack Kerouac: King of the Beats” which played theatrically in every major city in the U.S. and Canada and was distributed by Lorimar and October Films. It was broadcast to critical acclaim on the Arts & Entertainment Network, PBS, The Learning Channel and in a number of major European markets. The film screened in competition at the Sundance Festival and numerous other international film festivals including Edinburgh, Florence, San Francisco, Montreal, Seattle and Mill Valley.