Sheila Nevins on Her Oscar-Nominated Documentary on Book Bans: ‘We Have to Make This Film’ (Exclusive)

‘The ABCs of Book Banning’ examines the rise of book censorship from the perspective of students

A new film is taking the book banning controversy all the way to the Oscars.

The ABCs of Book Banning, a new documentary by acclaimed producer and director Sheila Nevins, is nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Film. The film examines the impact of book banning on students, told from their perspective.

“Children care a lot about what they read because they can't get on a plane and they can't look at the world except through books,” Nevins, 84, tells PEOPLE. “And so books are their sight. Books are the way they see what's out there, what was, what is, what will become.”

Nevins, who recently announced her departure as head of MTV Documentary Films, and who previously served as president of HBO Documentary Films and Family Programming, currently holds 26 Academy Awards for her work in film — The ABCs of Book Banning is her first nomination as director. Trish Adlesic and Nazenet Habtezghi also directed the film.

Book censorship has rapidly increased in recent years, and has become a nationwide debate. According to preliminary data found by the American Library Association, 3,923 titles were challenged between January 1, 2023 and August 31, 2023. PEN America reports that some of the most-banned titles during the 2022-2023 school year included The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison and Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe. Many books that are challenged discuss race, LGBTQ issues and history.

Related: Meet the FReadom Fighters Taking On Book Bans and Online Abuse: 'Books Are Not Contraband' 

Nevins says that she was first inspired to make the documentary after coming across one standout advocate: 101-year-old Grace Linn, who appears in the documentary to speak out against book banning before a school board in Martin County, Florida.

“She was talking about this disgrace of banning books in that particular school district,” Nevins says. “I really didn't know very much about book banning, but she inspired me to look into it. Then, I thought, ‘We have to make this film.’”

While book censorship discussions often put parents and educators in the spotlight, Nevins decided to center the documentary on the children directly impacted, told in their own voices.

“We didn't want it to appear as a children's film, which it certainly is not,” she says. “But the stars of it are really the children and their books.”

The documentary includes interviews with Florida students, ranging in age from elementary to high school. The film also shows the covers of restricted, challenged and banned books that the students are reading, along with quoted passages from the books themselves.

Related: Ariana Grande, Gabrielle Union, Guillermo del Toro and Others Sign Open Letter Denouncing Book Bans

“We were astounded to find the kind of books that were banned for children,” Nevins says. “Everything from [And Tango Makes Three] to the graphic [novelization of] Anne Frank. The span of censure was quite extraordinary. And the censorship in general was overwhelming.”

Working on the film also gave Nevins an opportunity to reflect on her own experience as a reader.

“I realized what a big part books had played in my life, and that I really formed a lot of what I loved and thought about the world from the books that I read,” she says. “And to think that young children were going to be deprived [of] that; it scared me.”

Related: Bestselling Author Jason Reynolds on His Books Being Banned: 'It Feels Insulting' (Exclusive)

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Amidst the growing number of attempts to censor books around the country, Nevins hopes that The ABCs of Book Banning will highlight young people's right to “expand their horizons.”

“It's a tough world that children are growing up in now. It's a world with war. It's a world where the planet is in danger,” she says. “I would want them to be informed about the world they live in so that they can make it a safer and better place.”

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