Good Morning Fish!

Description

Clarence Hamilton was born and raised in Johannesburg. South Africa. After being arrested by South Africa’s notorious Special Branch in 1974 under the Communism Act for his high school student activism, fled to Botswana. Over the following eighteen years he lived in Botswana, Zimbabwe and eventually. Canada, where he trained as a filmmaker at Toronto’s Ryerson Polytechnical Institute, graduating in 1990. His first professional assignment in South Africa was as a writer and director on Ulibambe Lingashono, a four part documentary history of the struggle against apartheid in 1993.

Clarence then went on to write, produce and co-direct Molo Fish, a thirteen part semi-autobiographical television drama about coming of age under apartheid. It was the first official co-production between South Africa and Canada in 1997 and was broadcast to critical acclaim in both countries. He went on to head-write on a number of South African television series, including Takalani Sesame, the South African version of this well-known US children’s educational television series. In 2006 Clarence was awarded a post-graduate diploma in arts in film studies by the University of the Witwatersrand which contributed tremendously to his ability to train writers. commissioning editors and story editors for Sediba, training programme of the National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF). in 2007 he became head of production and development at the NFVF where he played an instrumental role in transforming how film is developed, funded, and produced in South Africa. In 2015 Clarence returned to his first love – screenwriting, Good Morning Fish! is his first novel.