David was born in 1960 in Toronto. He made a lot of super 8 and 16mm films as a teenager growing up in the suburbs of Canada's biggest city. Despite the vast wasteland that was the Keele and Finch area of Downsview, David found inspiration and many of his films won awards at various festivals.  As a teenager, he made films at the school boards' summer program under the tuition of talented Czech emigre, Milo Kubik.   It was this encouragement and the support of many kind people in the film industry in Toronto, which led to David taking a career as a film maker seriously.

All About David Fine...

At 17 years old he made a short animated film called The Only Game in Town. This was a plasticene animated film about a father and son relationship based around a poker game. He co-directed this film with the documentary film maker Ron Mann. This film got a Canadian Academy Award nomination forbest short film. David and Ron also collaborated on other short films and lots of record buying.

Just as he finished high school, David was offered the opportunity to take part in the National Film Board of Canada's student film program. So he moved to Montreal for three months and made three short films there. This visit proved to be a great inspiration as he got to work amongst some of the finest animation filmmakers in the world, including Caroline Leaf, Janet Perlman, Derek Lamb, Sheldon Cohen, Co Hoedeman and many other talented artists who provided much inspiration and support.

After that, at the age of 19, David made a half hour documentary about the renowned Toronto viola maker, Otto Erdesz and his wife, the famous viola player Rivka Golani. This half hour film was produced as an independent production by David and broadcast by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The camera man on this documentary was a fellow by the name of Mark Irwin. Mark provided a beautiful look to this film and was kind to fit this job in between his work as D.O.P. on early David Cronenberg features.

After that, David attended film school in England at the National Film and Television school.  There he made two half hour live action dramas.  He also met fellow student Alison Snowden. They worked on each others films including Alison's short animation, Second Class Mail, which went on to win an Oscar nomination and led to their career together in film.  Oh, and they're also married!

The story continues on the Alison and David page.