Born in 1950 in Beechville, Nova Scotia, in a Halifax community first settled by Black refugees from the War of 1812, Sylvia Hamilton is a multi-award-winning Canadian filmmaker, writer and poet. She is considered, alongside Roger McTair, Claire Prieto and Jennifer Hodge, a pioneer of Black Canadian cinema.

Hamilton’s contribution to Canadian cinema is invaluable, as her work explores and traces the lives, histories and perspectives of people of African descent in Canada. Her filmography includes four titles, three of which were produced by the NFB. Black Mother Black Daughter (1989, co-directed with Claire Prieto), was one of the first NFB productions ever created by an all-female crew. It chronicles the lives of Black women in Nova Scotia, their contributions to the home, the church and the community, and the strengths they pass on to their daughters. Her second film as a director, Speak It! From the Heart of Black Nova Scotia (1992), is a landmark of Black Canadian cinema, as it depicts a predominantly white high school in Halifax in which a group of Black students face daily reminders of racism, ranging from abuse (racist graffiti on washroom walls) to exclusion (the omission of Black history from textbooks). Making Movie History: Sylvia Hamilton (2014), by Joanne Robertson, is a short film in which Sylvia Hamilton herself reflects on her work with the NFB’s Atlantic Studio and the birth of New Initiatives in Film for Black and Indigenous women.

After the NFB, Hamilton wrote, directed, produced and distributed through her company Maroon Films Inc. another documentary film, The Little Black School House (2007), focusing on the segregated elementary schools that existed in Nova Scotia and Ontario. All her films have been broadcast on major international TV channels and in schools and universities across North America. Hamilton has been honoured with numerous awards, including a Gemini Award and the National Film Board Kathleen Shannon Documentary Award (Yorkton Short Film and Video Festival, 1990), and was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada by the Governor General in 2024.