TORONTO — ACTRA (Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists) today named Juanita Peters (above) as this year’s ACTRA National Woman of the Year, an honour bestowed annually by the performers’ union in celebration of International Women’s Day on March 8.
The award recognizes an ACTRA member “who uses their passion to support ACTRA members and women within the broader audiovisual industry,” says a press release.
“We are proud to honour Juanita Peters as our ACTRA National 2022 Woman of the Year,” said ACTRA national president Eleanor Noble, in the release.
“Juanita, a Nova Scotian living in Dartmouth, has an extensive body of work as a performer, director, writer, journalist and documentarian,” Noble said. “She began her career as a news reporter and anchor for CBC News in the ’80s and ’90s and she is the current Executive Director of the Africville Museum in Halifax, Nova Scotia.”
“I am thrilled and shocked!” Peters said. “What an incredible honour to receive this amazing award from my colleagues. ACTRA has given me the opportunity to live out my childhood dreams of performing and being able to be part of stories that matter.”
Peters has been an ACTRA member for 20 years and she has performed in more than 30 films and television series, including Sex & Violence, Forgive Me, Splinters, Hobo with a Shotgun, Cloudburst and the Emmy-nominated Homeless to Harvard.
Her director credits include the CBC TV series Diggstown and Studio Black, and the feature film 8:37 Rebirth.
For more than 15 years, Peters was a journalist and news anchor in the Maritimes and hosted four seasons of the CBC documentary series Doc Side.
Peters is a founding member of Women in Film and Television – Atlantic (WIFT-AT) and the Atlantic Canada multicultural festival Nova MultiFest. She has served on the boards of Women in the Director’s Chair (WIDC), Playwrights Atlantic Resource, Matchstick Theatre and the Robert Pope Foundation.
In recent years, she has worked for the Council on African Canadian Education and also as knowledge lead for the Home for Colored Children Restorative Inquiry.
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Photo provided by ACTRA.
