Jennifer Hodge de Silva (28 January 1951 – 5 May 1989) was a Canadian filmmaker. Her film, ''Home Feeling: Struggle for a Community'', revealed tensions between and police and residents of the

Jane and Finch Jane and Finch is a neighbourhood located in the northwest end of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in the district of North York. Centred at the intersection of Jane Street and Finch Avenue West, the area is roughly bounded by Highway 400 to the west, ...

neighbourhood of

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

. The residents were mainly immigrants from Jamaica and Africa. She worked consistently with national organizations such the

National Film Board of Canada The National Film Board of Canada (NFB; french: Office national du film du Canada (ONF)) is Canada's public film and digital media producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary f ...

(NFB) and the

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (french: Société Radio-Canada), branded as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian public broadcaster for both radio and television. It is a federal Crown corporation that receives funding from the government. ...

(CBC). She was the first black filmmaker to do so.

Career

In 1978 she worked with

Terence Macartney-Filgate Terence Macartney-Filgate (6 August 1924 – 11 July 2022) was a British-Canadian film director who directed, wrote, produced or shot more than 100 films in a career spanning more than 50 years. Early life Born in England, Macartney-Filgate l ...

on the film ''Fields of Endless Day'' as assistant director and associate producer while she was a student. The next year she worked with him again as associate producer of the CBC documentary ''Dieppe 1942''. She covered stories about the lives of Chinese-Canadian immigrants and Indigenous artists and covered social issues in diverse neighbourhoods.

Cameron Bailey Cameron Bailey is a Canadian film critic and festival programmer, who is the CEO of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). Biography Born in London, England to parents from Barbados,Toronto International Film Festival The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the largest publicly attended film festivals in the world, attracting over 480,000 people annually. Since its founding in 1976, TIFF has grown to become a permane ...

, acknowledged her work in his 1990 article later published in a film anthology. In his 1990s publications Bailey honoured the work of black filmmakers such as Jennifer Hodge de Silva. The forms of production in which she worked were 'marginalized'. At times she made films that were sponsored for organizations such as of Education and the John Howard Society.

''Home Feeling: A Struggle for Community''

Her 1983 documentary ''Home Feeling: A Struggle for Community'', examining the relations between the police force and the black community, continues to be used in classrooms to this day.

Personal life

Jennifer Hodge de Silva comes from a family of women social activists — her grandmother, Anna Packwood and her daughters, Mairuth Vaughan Hodge Sarsfield (married to Cullen Squire Hodge) and Lucille Vaughn Cuevas.

Selected filmography

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hodge de Silva, Jennifer 1951 births 1989 deaths Black Canadian filmmakers Canadian documentary film directors Film directors from Montreal Canadian women film directors Canadian women documentary filmmakers Glendon College alumni