Sheila Nevins is President, HBO Documentary Films, for Home Box Office, responsible for overseeing the development and production of all documentaries for HBO, HBO2 and Cinemax. She was named to this position in February 2004.
Ms. Nevins' award-winning work as a documentary filmmaker and producer has been instrumental in telling important stories of people and figures both large and small. Their stories have had profound resonance in our broader culture, and her role in pursuing and producing their stories has shaped both our thinking about the world and the field of documentary filmmaking itself.
As an executive producer or producer, she has received 26 Primetime Emmy® Awards, 31 News and Documentary Emmys® and 37 George Foster Peabody Awards. During her tenure, HBO’s critically acclaimed documentaries have gone on to win 23 Academy Awards® including “Saving Face” (2012), “Strangers No More” (2011), “Music By Prudence (2010), “Smile Pinki” (2009), “The Blood of Yingzhou District” (2007), “Born Into Brothels” (2005), “Chernobyl Heart” (2004), “Murder on a Sunday Morning” (2002), “King Gimp” (2000), “The Personals: Improvisations on Roman in the Golden Years” (1999), “One Survivor Remembers” (1996), “I Am a Promise” (1994), “Educating Peter” (1993) and “You Don’t Have To Die” (1989). The series “Cinemax Reel Life” has featured a number of award-winning documentaries including “Big Mama,” winner of the 2001 Academy Award® for Best Short Subject, and “Breathing Lessons: The Life and Work of Mark O'Brien,” an Oscar® winner in 1997.
Nevins has been honored with several prestigious career achievement awards including, most recently, the 2009 Governors Award from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences and was made an NYU Tisch School of the Arts Honoree. She is also the recipient of a 2008 Gotham Awards Tribute; a 2005 Emmy® Lifetime Achievement Award for her contributions to the art of the documentary, the first time the National Television Academy awarded a Lifetime Achievement recognition to a documentarian; and a Personal Peabody in 1999 in recognition of her work and ongoing commitment to excellence. In 2003, Women in Film presented Nevins with a Lucy Award for her outstanding achievements in advancing documentary filmmaking. In 2002, the National Board of Review presented her with the Humanitarian Award for her contribution to the advancement of social reforms and the promotion of human welfare through film. In 2000, Nevins was inducted into Broadcasting & Cable’s Hall of Fame, and in 1998 she garnered the IDA Career Achievement Award and the New York Women in Film & Television Muse Award for Outstanding Vision & Achievement.
Nevins was named vice president, Documentary and Family Programming in 1985; appointed senior vice president, Original Programming, in 1995; and promoted to executive vice president, Original Programming, in 1999. She has supervised the production of more than 1,000 documentary programs for HBO, and won the first George Foster Peabody Award ever presented to a cable program for “She's Nobody's Baby,” which was produced with Ms. Magazine.
Nevins is a member of the Writers Guild of America, the Producers Guild of America and The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Nevins holds a BA from Barnard College and an MFA from Yale University School of Drama in Directing.