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In Innovation

/ Published on 18 October 2013

SA’s wine history unfolds in a just-released film about the history of the State's iconic wine-making dynasty, the Hamilton Family, spanning 176 years of vinicultural life & times

Wine Line – the Hamilton Story is a dramatised documentary film that highlights surprising human relationships and coincidences that underpinned the success of the family’s wine ventures – and the unheralded benefits they brought to the Australian wine industry.

Premiering last night at the equally iconic Capri Theatre, the film takes viewers on a creative journey through the history, life and times of SA’s earliest settlers - the Hamilton Family – who arrived on the second ship in the new colony in 1837. The family became founders of Hamilton’s Wines.

The documentary started as a corporate video production for Dr Richard Hamilton’s Leconfield Wines business – but as the family history was unearthed by a film-maker researcher, the project grew rapidly to a feature film reflecting six generations of a significant SA family. Dr Richard Hamilton is the great-great-grandson of the original founder Richard Hamilton.

“It was a passion of mine to see a way of telling the story of a unique family history after 175 years. I knew this was the time to act and what we came up with was a remarkable motion picture in which we had to recreate fascinating historic facts that were uncovered,” Dr Hamilton said.

The film was launched this week at the Capri Cinema on the exact day 176 years ago that Richard Hamilton, a tailor from Dover, England, set foot in South Australia.

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In Albinism

/ Published on 09 October 2013

Fresh from this year’s season of “The Voice”, Lauren Dawes, an outstanding singer with albinism, will perform at the Albinism Fellowship of Australia’s conference in Sydney this weekend.

Lauren, a model, actress and singer whose soulful performance on 2013’s season of ‘The Voice’ won her a spot being mentored by Seal, will sing at the welcome address and the “after conference” party

A person with albinism - an albino - is unable to produce the pigment melanin, so they typically have fair skin and hair and a visual impairment, often reading in the ‘legally blind’ category. 

More than 230 people are expected at the Albinism Fellowship of Australia national conference with runs from October 11-13. The event attracts people with albinism, their families and friends, medical and ophthalmic professionals from throughout Australia as well as NZ, Fiji, Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria and the US.

Albinism Fellowship President Elizabeth Beales described Lauren as a powerful role model for young people and children with the same condition. “Lauren’s singing talent and performance’s on ‘The Voice’ have won her many fans both inside and beyond the albinism community,” she said.

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In Albinism

/ Published on 08 October 2013

Leading international medical professionals will reveal the latest developments on surgery and genetics to the Albinism Fellowship of Australia national conference in Sydney this weekend.

For the first time, guest speakers from the US, including eye specialist Professor Gail Summers and geneticist Dr Murray Brilliant will attend the biennial conference, to share their experience and insights.

Gail Summers, MD, is Professor from the Departments of Ophthalmology and Visual Neurosciences, and Pediatrics Minnesota Lions Children's Eye Clinic.  Murray Brilliant, PhD, Senior Scientist, is the Director at the Center for Human Genetics at the Marshfield Clinic Research Foundation.

Both are deeply interested in albinism in which a person - an albino - cannot produce the pigment melanin, so they typically have fair skin and hair and a visual impairment, often reading in the ‘legally blind’ category. 

More than 230 people are expected at the Albinism Fellowship of Australia national conference with runs from October 11-13. The event attracts people with albinism, their families and friends, medical and ophthalmic professionals from throughout Australia as well as NZ, Fiji, Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria and the US.

Albinism Fellowship President Elizabeth Beales said this expert input into the weekend was highly anticipated. “This level of knowledge is of immeasurable value to the people attending,” she said.

“While albinism results in a visual loss which places most albinos in the legally blind category, there’s no medical intervention or surgery which can “fix” the vision, even with prescription glasses. While the retina and visual pathways are affected in-utero, medical procedures can sometimes provide ease or comfort to the muscles controlling the eyes, although the vision itself is not correctable.”

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