A High Note for a Highbrow Career
Sheila Nevins nabs an Oscar nom as she ends her run at MTV
Sheila Nevins has produced documentaries for most of her professional life. But at 84, she’s still notching career firsts. Last month, Nevins added “Oscar-nominated director” to her résumé, having landed her first nod for co-directing the short “The ABCS of Book Banning” with Trish Adlesic and Nazenet Habtezghi.
Nevins’ first Oscars as a nominee take place at the same time she is wrapping up her run as the head of MTV Documentary Films. Nevins joined the company in 2019 after 38 years at HBO.
“I went there to raise the bar for the intellectual quotient of what
MTV could produce in the documentary arena,” Nevins says. “I did highbrow and lowbrow at HBO, but when I got to MTV, I just did highbrow.”
On Nevins’ watch, MTV produced 40 docs and landed five Oscar nominations, including a feature doc bid this year for “The Eternal Memory.”
“Sheila Nevins is an extraordinary storyteller, pioneer and mensch,” says Chris Mccarthy, president and CEO of Showtime/ MTV Entertainment Studios. “She continues to give countless generations the gift of understanding, laughter and love through the stories she tells.”
Nevins was inspired to pick up the camera on “The ABCS of Book Banning” after watching 100-yearold Grace Linn on MSNBC protesting book banning in Florida.
“I thought, this is the microcosm of the downfall of American democracy, which is taking away from children the right to read about different races, different sexual [orientations], the history of war and the history of racism,” says Nevins. “It’s about to be an election year,” she thought to herself, “and I have to make some contribution and not let the world fall apart.”
Nevins’ contributions have earned her 32 Emmy Awards — the most in Emmy history for an individual — and 42 Peabody Awards. She has helped shape the careers of such acclaimed filmmakers as Alex Gibney, Liz Garbus and Joe Berlinger.
“I didn’t know anything about docus when I first started,” Nevins says. “Then when I saw the Maysles brothers’ films and some of Barbara Kopple’s stuff, I thought, ‘Oh, documentaries can be about real people, and they can be dramatic. They don’t have to be intellectual and just appeal to the 1%.’”
Documentary helmer Sam Pollard credits Nevins with “changing the whole landscape in terms of embracing doc filmmakers with vision and great stories to tell.” He worked with Nevins and Spike Lee on HBO’S “4 Little Girls” (1997) and “When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts” (2006). “She was one of the best executive producers I ever worked with,” Pollard says. “I didn’t always agree with her, but she was always on the nose.”
Nevins will remain with MTV until the end of March, when her contract expires. In addition to writing a memoir, Nevins will serve as an executive producer on several independently made documentaries.
“I might be dying, but I’m not retiring,” Nevins says.