John Reilly was born in 1939. He received a B.A. from Seton Hall University, and an M.A. and a Ph.D. in Communications Research from New York University. From 1967-69, Reilly was Chairman of the Film and Television Department at the New York Institute of Technology. In 1969, he co-founded the Global Village Resource Center with Rudi Stern. He was co-director of Global Village's annual Documentary Video Festival (now the Documentary Film Festival of New York) from 1974-1989. He has taught television and film production, television documentary: theory and techniques, mass communications, video production and other courses at the University of Kentucky, Rutgers, New York Institute of Technology, UCLA, CUNY and the New School for Social Research. From 1970 he was executive director and principal teacher in the Global Village Video Resource Center in New York City offering courses in professional television production and theory. He has made numerous documentaries ranging in subject from politics to the poor of Guatemala. He produced and directed the film Waiting for Beckett, a television documentary on the life and work of the Nobel Prize-winning writer Samuel Beckett, which won he Silver Hugo award at the Chicago International Film Festival. He teaches at Southampton College.