Michelle Basch, wtop.com
WASHINGTON – It was a very special night for two Academy Award winning filmmakers from Chevy Chase.
Sean Fine and his wife Andrea Nix Fine brought their Oscar-winning film to D.C.’s Avalon Theatre for two one-night-only benefit screenings Thursday, April 11.
The filmmakers took questions from the audience at each screening and WTOP Film Critic Jason Fraley served as host.
“Inocente,” a story about an extraordinary 15-year-old girl, won the Oscar for Best Documentary Short.
Despite being homeless, the film shows Inocente successfully spreading her wings as a talented artist.
It’s an intimate portrait, but Nix Fine says getting Inocente and her family talking wasn’t as tough as you might think.
“I think sometimes people think ‘How did you get that out of those people?’ The question is posed like that. But I feel that people actually have a lot that they want to say, and no one’s asked.”
All profits from the screenings are going to the charity A Reason to Survive (ARTS), which uses art to help kids through tough times. The organization also connected the filmmakers with Inocente.
“It’s a special thing for me in particular to have this show in this theater because I saw some of my first movies in this movie theater,” said Sean Fine.
“I remember being 13, around that age, and saying one day I’m going to have a movie on this theater screen. So it’s really cool to be able to share this with you guys and have you guys watch this,” he added.
Responding to a question from the audience, Sean said Inocente is doing really well these days.
“She’s sold a ton of work through her website, she’s got a big art show in New York that’s going to happen in November, she’s been going to screenings, she’s raising money left and right. Actually a day after the Oscars, she got offered a full scholarship to an art school in Los Angeles.”
The Fines say another one of their documentaries, “Life According to Sam,” which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, will air on HBO in October. They’ve submitted the same film to the AFI Docs Film Festival (formerly Silverdocs) in the D.C. area in hopes it will be shown there, as well.
And there’s more exciting news for fans of the Fines.
“What we really want to do is, we want to direct a fictional feature. A script that we write and direct. So we have a really cool project that we’re talking to a producer in Hollywood about that we’re going to go pitch in the beginning of May to DreamWorks and all the big studios,” said Sean.
WTOP Film Critic Jason Fraley’s review of the film can be read here.
Learn more about the “Inocente” film here and watch the trailer below.
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