Academy Award winners as Distinguished Artists in Residence

​Film Studies welcomes Academy Award-winning filmmakers Sean Fine ('96) and Andrea Nix to campus as the Fran and Ray Stark Foundation's Distinguished Artists. They will kick off their three-week visit with a screening of their most recent films, Life According to Sam and Inocente. 

During their residency they will be offering hands-on workshops, guest lectures, office hours and countless opportunities for you to meet with them and workshop your own creative film projects. 

Tomorrow, Monday February 24, there will be an opening reception in the first floor lobby of the Olin Science Center at 6:00pm, followed by a screening of the two films in Olin 014 at 7:00.  Sean and Andrea will then discuss their work and answer questions from the audience.  

Sean Fine, Connecticut College class of 1996, and Andrea Nix Fine are Academy Award and Emmy award winning filmmakers who specialize in creating visually powerful and authentic portraits of characters who tell their own story.  Working as a collaborative team, (they direct together and Sean is the cinematographer), their films have been hailed by critics as “unflinching”, “spirit-raising” and “visually ravishing”. One of their latest films, Inocente, a coming-of-age story about a homeless 15-year-old Latina artist, won the 2013 Oscar for Best Short Documentary.

The Fines current documentary, Life According to Sam, debuted at Sundance and aired on HBO in 2013 and was shortlisted for the 2014 Academy Awards for Best Documentary. Embraced on the festival circuit, the film’s honors include the Heartland Film Festival Award, Nantucket Film Festival’s Audience Award and Best Storytelling Award, the Best of the Fest at the AFI film festival, and the Mountainfilm Festival’s Indomitable Spirit Award. The Fines’ film War/Dance won Emmys for Best Documentary and Best Cinematography in 2009, was nominated for the 2008 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, and won the Best Director award at Sundance in 2007.