Sheila Hayman Explained

Sheila Hayman (born 1956) is a British documentary filmmaker, journalist and novelist.

Life

Sheila Hayman was born in 1956, one of three daughters of Walter Hayman and Margaret Hayman, who together founded the British Mathematical Olympiad. She is a descendant of the composer Fanny Mendelssohn.[1] Her older sister is Carolyn Hayman, cofounder of Peace Direct. She was educated at Putney High School and Newnham College, Cambridge.[2]

Hayman joined the Science department of the BBC, and later worked with Channel 4.[3] In 1990 she was awarded a BAFTA Fulbright Fellowship in film and television by the Fulbright Commission.[4] She moved to Los Angeles to learn screenwriting. In California she encountered the early internet, about which she made the BBC documentary The Electronic Frontier.[3]

Hayman's film Mendelssohn, the Nazis and Me (2009) wove together the legacy of Felix Mendelssohn with the experience of her family and other Jewish survivors of Nazi Germany.[5] The documentary was nominated for the Grierson Arts Documentary of the Year in 2010.[6]

In 2016 Hayman was appointed a Director's Fellow at the MIT Media Lab.[7] At MIT she began a documentary project, Senseless, on the difference between machine and human intelligence.[8] In 2020 she was Artist in Residence at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.[9] The residency led to a short film, Complexity, with music by Cosmo Sheldrake, on the challenges of reducing the natural world's complexity to computer models.[10]

Hayman's 2023 documentary Fanny: The Other Mendelssohn told the story of her great-great-great-grandmother, the composer Fanny Mendelssohn, and the rediscovery of her lost Easter Sonata.[11] [12] [13]

Hayman is married to the TV producer and writer Patrick Uden.[14] She serves on the advisory board of the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy.[15] She has a long-term job at Freedom from Torture,[16] where she coordinates a creative writing group for torture survivors, 'Write to Life'. She has also written three comic novels.[3]

Works

TV

Films

Novels

Notes and References

  1. News: Derek . Hawkins . A Mendelssohn masterpiece was really his sister’s. After 188 years, it premiered under her name. . The Washington Post . 9 March 2017 . 2024-07-06.
  2. Web site: Wall of Women . Newnham College .
  3. News: Marsha . Glenn . Pacifist Warrior: Sheila Hayman . The Guardian . 20 June 2019 .
  4. News: Reception: Fulbright Commission . The Times . 17 July 1990 . 16 .
  5. Web site: Benjamin . Ivry . Nazis, Mendelssohns and Music: The Mendelssohn Mishpocha on Surviving Felix . Forward . 29 March 2010 . 2024-07-06 .
  6. Web site: 2011-08-10 . The Grierson Trust : Nominations 2010 . https://web.archive.org/web/20110519005412/http://www.griersontrust.org/past-awards/grierson-2010/nominations.html . 2011-05-19 . 2024-07-06 .
  7. Web site: 2016 MIT Media Lab Director’s Fellows announced . MIT News . July 22, 2016 . 2024-07-06 .
  8. Web site: WATCH: Is artificial intelligent? With Sheila Hayman . Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy . 6 December 2023 . 2024-07-06 .
  9. Web site: PIK's 2020 Resident Artist: Sheila Hayman . 2024-07-06 .
  10. Web site: Complexity . YouTube .
  11. Web site: Florence . Lockheart . 'Neither an Angry Rebel, Nor a Tragic Victim': Excavating the Legacy of Fanny Mendelssohn . classical-music.uk . 24 October 2023 .
  12. Web site: Fanny Mendelssohn’s real-life great-great-great granddaughter turns composer’s ‘formidable’ life into film . Classic FM . 31 October 2023 . 2024-07-06 .
  13. News: Jessica . Duchen . Jessica Duchen . The remarkable life of Fanny, the other Mendelssohn . The Times . 24 October 2023 . 2024-07-06 .
  14. Web site: Contributor: Patrick Uden . Huffington Post . 2024-07-06 .
  15. Web site: Sheila Hayman . Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy . 2024-07-06 .
  16. Web site: Sheila Hayman . Newnham Associates . 2024-07-08 .

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