Sean Fine

Sean Fine is an American documentary film-maker whose War/Dance about child soldiers was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2007. Inocente, made by Fine and his wife, won the 2013 Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject). The film tells the story of a 15-year-old homeless girl from California who has ambitions to become an artist.

Life and career

Fine is the son of a cinematographer/director and a film editor/director. He was a 1986 graduate of St. Patrick's Episcopal Day School, Washington, D.C. and a 1996 graduate of Connecticut College. It was not until he took a summer film course at NYU that he realized he wanted to make films for a living. After graduating from college, he went to work for National Geographic, where he met his wife, Andrea Nix.

Within a year after starting to work for National Geographic, he was directing his first documentary, which won two national Emmy Awards. Fine credits National Geographic for teaching him how to "get the shot the first time" in very difficult locations. Fine and his wife, Andrea Nix Fine, decided to make a documentary about the twenty-year-old civil war in northern Uganda after having been contacted by a non-profit, Shine Global. Their son was a year old at the time of filming, causing them to stay in separate parts of Uganda during filming due to the dangers involved.