Sheila Nevins is adding the Lumiere Career Achievement Award to her dozens of Emmys and Peabodys. Per The Hollywood Reporter, the former president of HBO Documentary Films will receive the honor at the Hamptons Doc Fest on December 1. The ceremony will include a tribute to her four decades as a producer and an informal keynote from Nevins.
Nevins began her tenure as head of HBO Doc Films in 2004 and stepped down last year. HBO nabbed 26 Oscars during her reign, including a statuette for Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy’s short “A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness.” Alexandra Pelosi’s upcoming exploration of the United States’ political divide, “Outside the Bubble,” Marina Zenovich’s “Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind,” and Cathy Chermol’s “RX: Early Detection – A Cancer Journey with Sandra Lee” are among the veteran producer’s recent credits.
In 2005 Nevins won a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Emmy Awards, marking the first time the honor has been given to a documentarian. Her many accolades also include the Athena Film Fest’s President’s Visionary Award and Women and Hollywood’s 10th Anniversary Trailblazer Award.
“I do have a philosophy about documentaries, which is that I really do believe that almost everybody has a story. I love ordinary people. And they’re often very heroic. And very interesting. I don’t like fame,” Nevins has said of her work. “I’m not interested in famous people. I don’t trust the sameness of the story you get from celebrity. The few times I’ve had to deal with celebrity, I’ve read the same thing they say somewhere else.”
You can listen to a Women and Hollywood podcast conversation with Nevins here.
The Hamptons Doc Fest will run November 29-December 3. Susan Lacy’s “Jane Fonda in Five Acts,” and Donna Zaccaro’s marriage equality portrait “To a More Perfect Union: U.S. v. Windsor” are among the films screening. Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin’s pic about free-solo rock climber Alex Honnold, “Free Solo,” will serve as closing night film.
