Live Q&A with War/Dance Directors, Sean & Andrea Nix Fine

by Ruhani Singh

Directors Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine joined Shine Global Co-Founder, Albie Hecht, for a live Q&A about their Oscar-nominated and Emmy-winning documentary War/Dance. You can watch it now below!

War/Dance follows three children, Nancy, Domenic, and Rose, who find hope in the future by competing in Uganda’s national music and dance festival.  Their historic journey is a stirring tale about the power of the human spirit to triumph against tremendous odds.

Live Q&A

“No one was asking these people, these kids, about their story. So when we asked them, they were very excited to open up” 

– Sean Fine, Director

This Q&A session helps the audience get a better understanding of the different obstacles Sean and Andrea faced making a film in an active war zone area.

“That’s all people think these kids are, that’s all they are, the only voice is like horror or an image of them with a gun and we wanted to change that and make people care” 

– Sean Fine

A surprise appearance occurs from one of the main children in the film, Dominic Akina, who talks about his experience and the kind of work he is doing now in Canada as a filmmaker himself. He shares his journey of being a war survivor and says,  “So I learned very early on to kind of fence myself and my go-to survival mode is basically to run, run, run, and I kind of learned instinctively to take care of myself.” For him, in a dire situation like that, hope was the only thing he couldn’t lose.  

“It was a combination of like make me care, make me relate and I think that’s what happens, hopefully, in the film, and you start to feel and care because you’re understanding and connecting.” 

– Andrea Nix Fine

Click below to view this provocative conversation after watching the impactful film War/Dance, a real-life story about a group of children whose love of music brings joy, excitement, and hope back into their poverty-stricken lives full of terror and loss.

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