Sylvia Hamilton
Encyclopedia
Sylvia Hamilton is a Nova Scotia filmmaker, and writer whose work focuses on the experience of Black Nova Scotians.
She has been honoured with several awards for her work, including a Gemini, the Japan Broadcasting Corporation’s Maeda Prize, the Progress Women of Excellence Award for Arts and Culture, the CBC Television Pioneer Award, and Nova Scotia's highest award for the arts the Portia White Prize for Excellence. She has presented her films and lectured widely in Canada, Europe and Africa, and is a Trudeau Foundation Mentor, and held a Distinguished Chair (Nancy's Chair) at Mount St Vincent University.
Hamilton is the co-creator, of the New Initiatives Program of the National Film Board of Canada, a program supporting for women of color and First Nations women filmmakers.
a community outside of Halifax, and attended segregated all-Black schools.
She has been honoured with several awards for her work, including a Gemini, the Japan Broadcasting Corporation’s Maeda Prize, the Progress Women of Excellence Award for Arts and Culture, the CBC Television Pioneer Award, and Nova Scotia's highest award for the arts the Portia White Prize for Excellence. She has presented her films and lectured widely in Canada, Europe and Africa, and is a Trudeau Foundation Mentor, and held a Distinguished Chair (Nancy's Chair) at Mount St Vincent University.
Hamilton is the co-creator, of the New Initiatives Program of the National Film Board of Canada, a program supporting for women of color and First Nations women filmmakers.
Biography
Hamilton was grew up in BeechervilleBeechville, Nova Scotia
Beechville is a community within the Halifax Regional Municipality of Nova Scotia, Canada, on the St. Margaret's Bay Road . The Beechville Lakeville Timberlea trail starts here near Lovett Lake, following the line of the old Halifax and Southwestern Railway.-History:Many of the first arrivals were...
a community outside of Halifax, and attended segregated all-Black schools.
Filmography
- The Little Black School House (2007)
- Portia White: Think On Me (2000)
- Against the Tides: The Jones Family (Hymn to freedom Series)
- Speak It! From the Heart of Black Nova Scotia Speak It! From the Heart of Black Nova ScotiaSpeak It! From the Heart of Black Nova Scotia is a 1992 documentary film by Sylvia Hamilton, focusing on a group of Black Nova Scotian students in a predominantly white high school in Halifax, Nova Scotia who face daily reminders of racism...
(1992) - Black Mother Black Daughter (1989)
Further reading
- McGuire, Shana, and Darrell Varga (2010) Eradicating Erasure: The Documentary Films of Sylvia Hamilton, in Gendered Screen: Canadian Women Filmmakers. Waterloo:Wilfred Laurier University Press.
- "Memory Writ Large: Film and Inquiry." Sylvia Hamilton interviewed by Lori Neilsen. Provoked by Art: Theorizing Arts-Informed Research. Ed. by Ardra L. Cole, Lorri Neilson, J. Gary Knowles, and Teresa C. Luciani. Halifax: Backalong Books and Centre for Arts-Informed Research. 2004.http://www.backalongbooks.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=58&Itemid=84