Daviot Kelly, Staff Reporter
WINSTON SILL/FREELANCE PHOTOGRAPHER
St. Kitts High Commissioner Cedric Harper chats with Dr. Sylvia Hamilton, as the Canadian High Commission hosted a reception for her and a video screening of two of her films at the Philip Sherlock Centre for the Creative Arts, UWI, Mona, last Tuesday.
TO DO its part in celebrating Black History Month, the Canadian High Commission
welcomed a stalwart in Canadian film to our shores.
Dr. Sylvia Hamilton, respected filmmaker from Nova Scotia, had two of her more popular works viewed by a small audience at the Sir Philip Sherlock Centre at the UWI on Tuesday, February 22. The two documentaries had the audience riveted.
FILMMAKER'S MAGIC
The first, entitled Black Mother, Black Daughter
highlighted the struggles and
triumphs of black Canadian women. The documentary explained the role that these women played in uplifting
their communities, and gave the audience insight as to what it was like for a black woman growing up in Canada.
Her second work was a
biography of Canada's first diva. As Dr. Hamilton said, before Shania Twain and Celine Dion, there was Portia White, a black classical singer with a voice which outweighed superlatives. The documentary, Portia White Think On Me chronicles the singer's life; from learning to play the piano at age five, to
getting her tutoring at the Halifax Conservatory of Music and her rise to fame in the 1940s. White even performed
in Jamaica in 1946.
In between Hamilton's pieces, a five-part Black History series produced by Canada's City TV was also shown. The series was entitled The Underground Railroad Next Stop: Toronto and focused on the push by slaves, both freed and those that ran away, who came to Canada in search of a better life. It
highlighted the achievements
of a few, including Thornton Blackburn, a slave from the American south, who came to Canada and successfully opened a horse-and-buggy taxi service.
OOHS AND AAHS
The oohs and aahs resounding off the walls of the centre were a clear indication that many in the audience, maybe even High Commissioner Claudio Valle
himself, had learned something. Among those who came and were amazed by the films were: George Fatta; Trinidad and Tobago's High Commissioner Dennis Francis; Stuart and Yvonne Fisher; Franklyn 'Chappy' St. Juste; Yvette Rowe; Paul Pennicook; Vivian Crawford; St. Kitts and Nevis High Commissioner Cedric Harper and wife Barbara; UNESCO Helene-Marie Gosselin; Michael Anthony Cuffe and Dr. Hopeton Dunne.
