{{short description|American animator, artist, filmmaker, writer, teacher, and social activist (1970–2007)}} {{about||the art historian|Helen Hills|the location in New York State|Helen Hill Historic District}} {{Infobox person | name = Helen Hill | image = HelenHillListenTotheRoosterFeb06Cropped.jpg | caption = Hill in New Orleans in 2006 | birth_name = Helen Wingard Hill | birth_date = {{birth date|1970|05|09|mf=y}} | birth_place = Columbia, South Carolina, U.S. | death_date = {{death date and age|2007|01|04|1970|05|09|mf=y}} | death_place = New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S. | occupation = Film director, animator, songwriter | spouse = {{marriage|Paul Gailiunas|1995}} | children = 1 | alma_mater = Harvard University<br>California Institute of the Arts }}
'''Helen Wingard Hill''' (May 9, 1970 – January 4, 2007) was an American artist, filmmaker, writer, teacher, and social activist. When her final film, ''The Florestine Collection'', was released in 2011, curators and critics praised her work and legacy, describing her, for example, as "one of the most well-regarded experimental animators of her generation".<ref>Quotation from Los Angeles Filmforum's description of ''The Florestine Collection'' screening at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood on December 11, 2011. [http://www.lafilmforum.org/index/Current_Schedule/Entries/2011/12/11_The_49th_Annual_Ann_Arbor_Film_Festival_Tour_%E2%80%93_Program_B.html The 49th Annual Ann Arbor Film Festival Tour – Program B] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120415055035/http://www.lafilmforum.org/index/Current_Schedule/Entries/2011/12/11_The_49th_Annual_Ann_Arbor_Film_Festival_Tour_%E2%80%93_Program_B.html |date=2012-04-15 }} See also the [http://aafilmfest.org/49/index.php/films/the_florestine_collection 2011 Ann Arbor Film Festival program] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110320070331/http://aafilmfest.org/49/index.php/films/the_florestine_collection/ |date=2011-03-20 }}. As of Feb. 7, 2015, these two web pages are defunct, however the anonymous quotation remains documented [http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/214030 as part of the Brown Paper Tickets site referencing the Los Angeles Filmforum screening of Dec. 11, 2011, "The 49th Annual Ann Arbor Film Festival Traveling Tour – Program 2."]</ref>
Hill's death at the age of 36 brought considerable media attention. In 2007, an unidentified intruder shot and killed her in her New Orleans home. Her death (one of six murders in the city that day), coupled with the murder a week before of New Orleans musician Dinerral Shavers, sparked civic outrage. Thousands marched against the rampant and continuing post-Katrina violence in New Orleans. This "March Against Violence on City Hall" drew significant press coverage throughout the United States and beyond. However, in the years following that tragic notoriety, Hill's life and creative work have been widely celebrated, with her films continuing to circulate to a degree they did not during her lifetime. In 2012, Daniel Eagan wrote about Hill as one of "Five Women Animators Who Shook Up the Industry".<ref>Daniel Eagan, "Five Women Animators Who Shook Up the Industry," [http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/five-women-animators-who-shook-up-the-industry-120442836/#BIrKFGz8FgasR7lU.99 Smithsonian.com], June 13, 2012.</ref>
== Biography == Hill was a native of Columbia, South Carolina, where she lived until graduating from Dreher High School in 1988. She identified herself as a Southerner (although after marrying Paul Gailiunas, a Canadian citizen originally from Edmonton, Alberta, she later became a dual US-Canadian citizen) and had deep roots in her home city of Columbia. Her mother, Becky, named her Helen Wingard Hill after her own mother, Helen Addison Wingard, another Columbian.
Hill began creating short animated films at age 11.<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaTLUolz1v0 UNSOLVED: The Murder of Helen Hill - this is MONSTERS on YouTube]</ref> After the documentary filmmaker Stan Woodward visited her fifth-grade class, Hill made a stop-motion Super 8 film that she entitled ''The House of Sweet Magic'' (1981). Made on a tabletop at home, it shows a toy dinosaur attacking a gingerbread house. That same year, she and her classmates (assisted by Susan Leonard of the South Carolina Arts Commission and teacher Penelope Rawl) made another Super 8 movie as part of a statewide filmmaking-in-the-classroom initiative. ''Quacks'', a live action film with a musical track recorded separately on audiocassette tape, is a comic vignette featuring a person in a duck costume interacting with school children at their bus stop.
Hill earned her A.B. at Harvard University in 1992, where she majored in English and minored in Visual and Environmental Studies (the academic department housing filmmaking). While at Harvard she made the 16mm animated short ''Rain Dance'' (1990) as well as two other animated films.
After graduating from Harvard, Hill and her Harvard Class of '92 classmate Paul Gailiunas, merely a close friend at the time, headed to New Orleans for the summer, drawn to the city's vibrant arts and music culture and its progressive social sensibility. That summer they fell in love, and the couple married in Columbia, South Carolina, two years later.
Hill further developed her artistic work while completing her Masters of Fine Arts degree at California Institute of the Arts. Upon her graduation from CalArts in 1995, she moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada where Gailiunas was attending Dalhousie University Medical School. Hill continued to create films and teach film animation at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (now NSCAD University) and at the Atlantic Filmmakers Cooperative (AFCOOP). The couple lived in Halifax's culturally diverse but economically depressed North End (which she paid tribute to in her film ''Bohemian Town'' (2004)).
In December 2000, the couple returned to New Orleans with their cat Nola and their pot-bellied pig Rosie, settling in the Mid-City district. On October 15, 2004, Hill gave birth to their son, Francis Pop.
She continued to teach animation through the New Orleans Video Access Center (NOVAC) as well as the New Orleans Film Collective, which she co-founded.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.afcoop.ca/30takes/bio_hill.html |title=Biography on Atlantic Filmmakers Cooperative site |access-date=May 22, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070227085745/http://www.afcoop.ca/30takes/bio_hill.html |website=afcoop.ca|archive-date=February 27, 2007 }}</ref>
In August 2005, Hill and family were temporarily displaced and lost most of their possessions due to the Hurricane Katrina levee failures, which flooded their Mid-City home, along with some 80% of the city. They relocated to Columbia, South Carolina and stayed with family there for a year. Hill persuaded her husband (in part by rallying friends in an ingenious postcard campaign) to move the family back to New Orleans in August 2006. She continued to make films and engage in grassroots activism, which focused on rebuilding the city and the Faubourg Marigny neighborhood. She was a visiting artist and teacher at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts at the time of her death.
==Death== thumb|right|Memorial items outside Hill & Gailiunas' house Hill was murdered at approximately 5:30 in the morning on January 4, 2007, by an unknown intruder in her home in the Faubourg Marigny neighborhood. Her husband was shot three times and survived; their toddler son was uninjured. Shortly beforehand, the intruder had apparently attempted to rob a bed-and-breakfast a few houses down the street. Police were questioning the bed-and-breakfast's owners when they heard gunshots at Hill's house.
As of 2026, the New Orleans Police Department has made no arrest in the case, despite a $15,000 Crimestoppers reward being offered for any information leading to an indictment. The case has received extensive media coverage, including national radio, television, and print coverage in the United States and Canada.<ref>{{cite book |author=Dan Streible |editor=Diane Negra |chapter=Media Artists, Local Activists, and Outsider Archivists: The Case of Helen Hill |title=Old and New Media after Katrina|publisher=Palgrave|date=2010|pages=149–174}}</ref>
Hill's murder was one of a spate of killings in the first week of 2007 in New Orleans, prompting civic outrage that culminated in a march on City Hall on January 11, 2007,<ref>{{cite news|author=Brendan McCarthy |access-date=March 3, 2016|title=Marigny victims worked to leave mark on city|url=http://www.nola.com/search/index.ssf?%2Fbase%2Fnews-7%2F1168069740297680.xml%3FNP1&coll=1 |location= New Orleans |work=The Times-Picayune|date= January 6, 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303204451/http://www.nola.com/search/index.ssf?%2Fbase%2Fnews-7%2F1168069740297680.xml%3FNP1&coll=1|archive-date=2016-03-03}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|author= Laura Maggi|title=Enough! Thousands March to Protest City's Alarming Murder Rate|url=http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?%2Fbase%2Fnews-7%2F1168069740297680.xml&coll=1|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080403045033/http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?%2Fbase%2Fnews-7%2F1168069740297680.xml&coll=1 |archive-date=April 3, 2008 |location= New Orleans|work=The Times-Picayune|date= January 12, 2007}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url= https://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070105.wxmurder06/BNStory/National/home |title=Life in New Orleans Turns Tragic for Canadians|work= The Globe & Mail|date= January 6, 2007}}</ref> sometimes referred to as the March for Survival. Organizers Helen Gillet (a friend to both Hill and Shavers), Ken Foster, and Baty Landis went on to form the nonprofit organization Silence Is Violence, which remains active in its "campaign for peace in New Orleans".<ref>{{cite web|website=silenceisviolence.org|publisher=Silence Is Violence|url=http://silenceisviolence.org/about/|title=Who We Are|access-date=2015-02-07|archive-date=2022-07-04|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220704211609/https://silenceisviolence.org/about/|url-status=dead}}</ref>
== Film and artwork == right|thumb|Marchers outside City Hall with sign remembering Hill In filmmaking technique, Hill took inspiration from animation pioneer Lotte Reiniger's two-dimensional silhouette puppets. Hill's films incorporate many other techniques, such as stop motion, three-dimensional puppets, cel cycles, and "direction animation" (drawing and scratching on celluloid). In the mid-1990s, Hill became attracted to do-it-yourself methods of filmmaking, such as hand processing and tinting or toning images by hand. In 1999 and 2000, she attended Phil Hoffman's Independent Imaging Retreat in Mount Forest, Ontario, Canada, to develop her hand-processing skills. Hand-crafted film techniques found their way into her film work, most notably in ''Mouseholes'' (1999) and ''Madame Winger Makes a Film'' (2001).
In addition to her body of work in film, Hill took on other roles, curating ''The Ladies' Film Bee'' program at the 2000 Splice This! Super 8 Film Festival (Toronto) and compiling and editing a reference book of hand-crafted film techniques ''Recipes for Disaster: A Handcrafted Film Cookbooklet'' (2001, revised 2004, 2006). After Hurricane Katrina, Hill's interests in film expanded into archiving. She gave talks at CalArts, the University of South Carolina, and other venues, promoting do-it-yourself techniques for archiving and restoring motion picture film. The moving image archivist Kara Van Malssen worked with Hill as part of her 2006 New York University master's thesis, ''Disaster Planning and Recovery: Post-Katrina Lessons for Mixed Media Collections''.<ref>Kara Van Malssen, ''[http://www.nyu.edu/tisch/preservation/research/disaster/06ala-talks/talk_vanmalssen.shtml "Disaster Planning and Recovery: Post-Katrina Lessons for Mixed Media Collections," 2006.]'' See also Van Malssen, "Preserving the Legacy of Experimental Filmmaker Helen Hill," SOIMA in Practice (website of the Sound and Image Collections Conservation Programme, International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property), 2009, http://soima.iccrom.org/united-states-experimental-film-preservation {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180907103611/http://soima.iccrom.org/united-states-experimental-film-preservation/ |date=2018-09-07 }} (accessed September 7, 2018).</ref>
Hill's films earned awards and were featured in significant festivals (such as the Ann Arbor Film Festival). In 2004, she was awarded a Media Arts Fellowship Grant by the Rockefeller Foundation for her achievements in film. She used this award to begin production on ''The Florestine Collection'', an animated film inspired by a collection of about 100 hand-sewn dresses she found in a garbage pile in New Orleans in 2001. This film was completed by Gailiunas and friends and was awarded the Short Documentary Award at the 2011 DOXA Documentary Film Festival.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.doxafestival.ca/doxa-11/festival/awards.html |title=DOXA 2011 Awards |access-date=2012-01-30 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120220032054/http://www.doxafestival.ca/doxa-11/festival/awards.html |archive-date=2012-02-20 }}</ref> In 2008, the Robert Flaherty Film Seminar posthumously gave Hill its Charles Samu Award, given to an animator whose work conveys "a universal message illuminating our sense of world community".<ref>''[https://orphanfilmsymposium.blogspot.com/2008/11/flaherty-gives-animation-award-to-helen.html "The Flaherty Gives Animation Award to Helen Hill," Orphan Film Symposium blog, Nov. 23, 2008.]''</ref>
In 2007, Harvard Film Archive established the Helen Hill Collection, a repository of films, drawings, photographs, art works, writings, music, and ephemera. Ten of Hill's animated and experimental works are available for archival loan and exhibition as a compilation reel of 16mm film prints.
In March 2008, New York University organized "Anywhere: A Tribute to Artist and Activist Helen Hill," an evening of newly preserved work by and about Hill. The screening opened the 6th Orphan Film Symposium in New York. NYU's Department of Cinema Studies, the University of South Carolina Film Studies Program, and the Nickelodeon Theatre presented the inaugural Helen Hill Awards to filmmakers Naomi Uman and Jimmy Kinder for their works "affirming Helen Hill's artistic legacy, lived values, and everyday passions".<ref>The Orphan Film Symposium's Helen Hill Award is described [http://www.nyu.edu/orphanfilm/helenhillaward/ ''at NYU.edu/Orphans'']. In 2010, the symposium's award went to [http://www.danielleash.com ''Danielle Ash''] and [http://extv.wordpress.com/2009/10/30/extv-online-exhibitions-1-jodie-mack ''Jodie Mack'']. The 2012 recipients were Jeanne Liotta and Jo Dery. German filmmaker and collector Werner Nekes received the 2014 award.
Also, in 2008, the Nickelodeon Theatre/Columbia Film Society announced a [http://vimeo.com/22887910 Helen Hill Media Education Center] will be added to the renovation of the Nickelodeon's future home, the Fox Theatre on Main Street, in Columbia, South Carolina.</ref>
On December 30, 2009, the Librarian of Congress named Hill's film ''Scratch and Crow'' (1995) to the National Film Registry, a list of aesthetically, historically, and culturally significant American motion pictures. The Library's news release stated: "Helen Hill's student film was made at the California Institute of the Arts. Consistent with the short films she made from age 11 until her death at 36, this animated short work is filled with vivid color and a light sense of humor. It is also a poetic and spiritual homage to animals and the human soul."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.loc.gov/film/NFR2009.pdf|title=About This Program|work=The Library of Congress}}</ref>
Scholar Anne Major published an assessment of the filmmaker's legacy, “Sweet Magic: The Preservation of Helen Hill’s Cinema,” in ''The Moving Image'' in 2019.<ref>Anne Major, “Sweet Magic: The Preservation of Helen Hill’s Cinema,” ''The Moving Image: Journal of the Association of Moving Image Archivists,''vol. 19, no. 1 (2019): 15–40. https://doi.org/10.5749/movingimage.19.1.0015.</ref>
== Filmography == thumb|right|Hill in New Orleans, 1993 Hill made the following films:<ref>{{cite journal|author=Streible, Dan |title=''In memoriam'' Helen Hill|journal=Film History|volume= 19|number= 4 |date=2007|pages= 438–41|doi=10.2979/FIL.2007.19.4.438}}</ref>
* ''The House of Sweet Magic'' (1981) * ''Quacks'' (1981, with classmates Shack Allison, Kevin Curtis, Cissy Fowler, Brannon Gregg, and Creighton Waters, at Brennen Elementary School) * ''Rain Dance'' (1990; soundtrack reconstructed 2007)<ref>[http://www.nyu.edu/tisch/preservation/program/student_work/2007spring/07s_3402_a1.pdf Preservation History]</ref> * ''Upperground Show'' (1991) * ''Vessel'' (1992) * ''No Smoking in the Theater'' (1995) * ''The World's Smallest Fair'' (1995) * ''Scratch and Crow'' (1995) * ''Tunnel of Love'' (1996) * "Fast Fax" for CBC-TV's ''StreetCents'' (1997–1998) * ''I Love Nola'' (1998) * ''Your New Pig is Down the Road'' (1999) * ''Mouseholes'' (1999) * ''Film for Rosie'' (2000) * ''Madame Winger Makes a Film'' (2001) * ''Five Spells'' (2001) * [''New Orleans Video Access Center poetry project'' film] (ca. 2002–05) * ''Termite Light'' (2003, with Courtney Egan) * ''Rosie Wonders What to Wear'' (2003)<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.gothtober.com/ARCHIVE/2003/index.html|date=2003|title=Gothtober 2003|website=gothtober.com}}</ref> * film for Haley Lou Haden's ''By Bread Alone'' (ca. 2003) * film for Haden's puppet theater ''One Life, Magic Cone'' (ca. 2003) * ''Gothtober Baby'' (2004)<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.gothtober.com/ARCHIVE/2004/index.html|title=Welcome to Gothtober 2004|website=gothtober.com}}</ref> * ''Bohemian Town'' (2004) * ''Halloween in New Orleans'' (2005)<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.gothtober.com/ARCHIVE/2005/index.html|date=2005|title=Gothtober 2005|website=gothtober.com}}</ref> * 16mm blowup, flood-damaged Super 8 home movies (2006)<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.sc.edu/filmsymposium/Orphans_Sound/mp3/hill.mp3 |title=Audio, Helen Hill introducing this film|website=sc.edu}}</ref> * ''Cleveland Street Gap'' (2006, with Courtney Egan) * ''A Monster in New Orleans'' (2006)<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.gothtober.com/ARCHIVE/2006/index.html|title=Gothtoberfest 2006!!!|website=gothtober.com}}</ref> thumb|right|Interview with filmmaker Hill, March 27, 2006 * More than 40 Super 8 films, home movies (early 1990s – January 2007) *''The House of Sweet Magic: Films By Helen Hill'' (a compilation DVD released in 2008 by Peripheral Produce, a Portland-based distributor of experimental films). The compilation includes: ''Tunnel of Love''; ''Madame Winger Makes a Film''; ''Scratch and Crow''; ''Your New Pig Is Down the Road''; ''The World's Smallest Fair''; ''Vessel''; ''Film for Rosie''; ''Mouseholes''; and ''Bohemian Town''.<ref>{{cite book|publisher=Peripheral Produce |title=Catalog |url=http://www.peripheralproduce.com/catalog.php |date=January 23, 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080123101047/http://www.peripheralproduce.com/catalog.php |archive-date=2008-01-23 }}</ref> * ''The Florestine Collection'' (2011), a film by Hill, completed by Gailiunas. Jury Award, Ann Arbor Film Festival; Short Documentary Award, DOXA Documentary Film Festival (Vancouver).
Also, Hill appears in * "Mermaids and Pickles" (1999, Trixy Sweetvittles) * ''Film Farm Dance'' (2001, Becka Barker) * ''Phil's Film Farm'' (2002, John Porter; dedicated to Hill) * Rox #90, "Fat" (2004, Frowning Cat Productions) giving a vegan perspective on the Atkins diet<ref>{{cite web|url=http://rox.com/media/vegan-lunch/|title=Vegan Lunch|date=13 April 2004|work=rox.com}}</ref> * ''Working Portraits'' (2005, Maïa Cybelle Carpenter) * ''Orphan Ist.'' (2006, Lauren Heath, Erin Curtis, and Mike Johns)<ref>[https://vimeo.com/13282924 Watch ''Orphan Ist.'' on Erin Curtis' Vimeo page. ]</ref> * ''[Home Movie Day New Orleans]'' (2006, Kelli Shay Hicks) * ''[Interview with Helen Hill at the 5th Orphan Film Symposium]'' (2006, Lauren Heath, Erin Curtis, and Mike Johns), in which she answers the question "What is an orphan film?" * ''Helen Hill: Celebrating a Life in Film'' (2007, SCETV)<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.scetv.org/television/productions/southern_lens/2007Season.cfm |title=Programs & Series |work=South Carolina ETV |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080615063617/http://www.scetv.org/television/productions/southern_lens/2007Season.cfm |archive-date=2008-06-15 }}</ref> * "One Year Later, New Orleans Grieves for Artists," 20-min. report by Noah Adams, ''All Things Considered,'' NPR, December 25, 2007.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17273271|title=One Year Later, New Orleans Grieves for Artists|date=25 December 2007|work=NPR}}</ref> * "Storm of Murder," CBS ''48 Hours Mystery'' (October 13, 2007)<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.cbsnews.com/news/storm-of-murder/|title=Storm Of Murder|date=9 October 2007|work=CBS News}}</ref>
==Portrayals and references in media==
* Edward Sanders (of the band The Fugs) published "Ode to Helen Hill" (2007), a 3,000-word "biographic poem on the New Orleans filmmaker", in ''Woodstock Journal''.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.woodstockjournal.com/pdf/helenhill.pdf |author=Sanders, Edward |title=Ode to Helen Hill|work=Woodstock Journal|date=2007|pages= 1–17}}</ref> * ''Helen LaBelle'' (1957), an animated film by Lotte Reiniger, was restored by the Deutsches Filminstitut in 2008; the restoration's end credit reads in part: "in memory of Helen Hill (1970–2007), animator and Lotte Reiniger devotee".<ref>Dan Streible, "Media Artists, Local Activists, and Outsider Archivists," Orphan Film Symposium blog, Mar. 8, 2010, wp.nyu.edu/orphanfilm/2016/03/08/media-artists-local-activists-and-outsider-archivists. Pre-publication draft of the essay published in Negra (2010).</ref> * ''Francis Pop's Hallowe'en Parade'' (2007, Francis Pop Gailiunas and Paul Gailiunas) is dedicated to Hill.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.gothtober.com/ARCHIVE/2007/|title=Gothtober 2007|website=gothtober.com}}</ref> * Season 2 of the HBO television drama series ''Treme'', shot in New Orleans, includes a story line about the real-life murders of Hill and Dinerral Shavers.<ref>{{cite news|author=Walker, Dave|work=The Times-Picayune|title=HBO's 'Treme' explained: 'Slip Away'|date=May 23, 2011|url=https://www.nola.com/treme-hbo/2011/05/treme_explained_slip_away.html|archive-date=June 1, 2019|access-date=June 7, 2025|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190601075259/https://www.nola.com/treme-hbo/2011/05/treme_explained_slip_away.html|url-status=bot: unknown}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|author=Walker, Dave|work=The Times-Picayune|title=HBO's 'Treme' explained: 'Feels Like Rain'|date=May 29, 2011|url=http://www.nola.com/treme-hbo/index.ssf/2011/05/treme_explained_feels_like_rai.html|archive-date=January 1, 2012|access-date=June 26, 2025|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120101222327/http://www.nola.com/treme-hbo/index.ssf/2011/05/treme_explained_feels_like_rai.html|url-status=bot: unknown}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=j5WCBgAAQBAJ&q=treme+references+helen+hill&pg=PA315|title=Flood of Images: Media, Memory, and Hurricane Katrina|page=315|author=Cook, Bernie |publisher=University of Texas Press|date= April 1, 2015|isbn=978-0-292-77136-9}} "The show runners would lead the writing staff in a discussion of the events they wanted to reference or represent in a given season. For example, they determined early in the process of planning Season 2 that they wanted to address the murders of Dinerral Shavers in December 2006 and Helen Hill in January 2007. They decided to cast an actor to portray Shavers but not to represent Hill before her death."</ref>
==Activism and songwriting== Hill was a lifelong peace activist and advocate of several grassroots social justice causes. Together with her husband, Dr. Paul Gailiunas, she helped initiate the Free Food Organization in Halifax in 1995. This later became a part of Food Not Bombs, which is still in operation. Also with her husband, she initiated several anti-smoking and anti-tobacco sponsorship campaigns. She was also a vegan and an animal rights activist, lending her support to rescue sanctuaries for pot-bellied pigs and other abandoned pets.
Whilst living in Halifax, Gailiunas formed a band called Piggy: The Calypso Orchestra of the Maritimes which recorded six albums between 1995 and 2001.<ref name=divergences>{{cite web|url=http://divergences.be/spip.php?article425&lang=fr|title=Remembering Helen Hill: A New Orleans community comes together after the murder of a friend and activist|author=John Clark|date=14 May 2007|publisher=Divergences}}</ref> Hill co-wrote the anarchist song "Emma Goldman" on their 1999 album ''Don't Stop the Calypso: Songs of Love and Liberation''. After Hill and Gailiunas moved to New Orleans, he started a new band called The Troublemakers and re-released the song "Emma Goldman" on their 2004 album ''Here Come The Troublemakers''.<ref name=divergences /> Proclaiming the motto "It's your duty as a citizen to troublemake," other songs on the album include "International Flag Burning Day".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.louisianamusicfactory.com/showoneprod.asp?productid=4022 |title=Here Come The Troublemakers |author=Louisiana Music Factory |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071211051233/http://www.louisianamusicfactory.com/showoneprod.asp?ProductID=4022 |archive-date=2007-12-11 }}</ref>
"Emma Goldman" was performed at Hill's jazz funeral in New Orleans.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Clark|first=John P.|date=Spring 2007|title="Remembering Helen Hill"|url=https://www.academia.edu/2630824|journal=Fifth Estate|language=en|pages=42, 47–49}}</ref>
==See also== * List of unsolved murders (2000–present) * Independent animation * List of American independent films
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== {{Commons category}} * [http://www.helenhill.org Helen Hill memorial website] * {{YouTube|o7ReG3l_9fM|Timecode: NOLA Helen Hill Interview (Aug. 2003)}} * [http://www.awn.com/mag/issue5.05/AWNMag5.05.pdf Chris Robinson, "Scandals, Smokescreens and a Golden Age?: Canadian Animation in the 21st Century," ''Animation World Magazine,'' 5. no. 5 (Aug. 2000): 45–52.] Also at [http://www.awn.com/animationworld/scandals-smokescreens-and-golden-age-canadian-animation-21st-century]. * [https://web.archive.org/web/20070925040851/http://www.amw.com/fugitives/brief.cfm?id=42393 America's Most Wanted-Unknown Helen Hill Killer] *[http://www.angoleiro.com/cine_texts/recipes_for_disaster_hill.pdf Helen Hill's "Recipe for Disaster" book] *[http://www.super8porter.ca/HelenHill.htm John Porter's Memorial for Helen Hill] *''Film History'' 19.4 (2007), which includes "''in memoriam Helen Hill''" *[https://web.archive.org/web/20080501062820/http://redcat.org/season/0708/fv/hill.php REDCAT Theater, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Jack H. Skirball Screening Series, HELEN HILL MEMORIAL (Oct. 1, 2007)] *[http://news.renewmedia.org/2007/09/25/remembering-helen-hill/ "Remembering Helen Hill," ReNew Media News, Sept. 25, 2007] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080618212342/http://news.renewmedia.org/2007/09/25/remembering-helen-hill/ |date=2008-06-18 }} This ReNew Media site was removed from the Web in 2009. *[http://www.02138mag.com/magazine/article/1497.html Jason Berry, "A Death in New Orleans," ''02138 Magazine,'' Sept–Oct 2007] *[http://www.thehighhat.com/misc/008/nugent_helen.html Phil Nugent, "An American City: New Orleans, Helen Hill, and Me", The High Hat] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111206022250/http://www.thehighhat.com/misc/008/nugent_helen.html |date=2011-12-06 }} *[http://www.sc.edu/filmsymposium/Orphans_Sound/orphans.htm Helen Hill, New Orleans filmmaker, post-Katrina home movies and animation (listen)] *[http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/schedule/search/film/?id=8518 The Life & Films of Helen Hill, memorial screening at Anthology Film Archives, New York, NY, Oct. 24, 2007 ] * [http://orphanfilmsymposium.blogspot.com/2008/02/helen-hill-award-recipients.html Helen Hill Awards to Animators Naomi Uman and James Kinder, 2008 Orphan Film Symposium ] *[http://www.nyu.edu/orphanfilm/ Tribute to Helen Hill, 6th Orphan Film Symposium, Cantor Film Center, New York University, March 26, 2008] *[http://www.lindajoy.com/helen_hill_award.htm Helen Hill Animated Award from the Linda Joy Awards, Halifax, Canada ] * [http://orphanfilmsymposium.blogspot.com/2009/11/ash-mack-receive-helen-hill-awards.html Danielle Ash and Jodie Mack, Recipients of the Helen Hill Award for the 2010 Orphan Film Symposium ] * [http://thestory.org/archive/the_story_1112_Hurricane_Katrina_Anniversary.mp3/mediafile_view?portal_status_message=Mail%20sent ''The Florestine Collection'' and the 5th anniversary of Katrina, on ''The Story, with Dick Gordon'' (NC Public Radio), originally broadcast August 27, 2010 ] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110303231318/http://thestory.org/archive/the_story_1112_Hurricane_Katrina_Anniversary.mp3/mediafile_view?portal_status_message=Mail%20sent |date=March 3, 2011 }} * [http://anout.bandcamp.com/track/helen-hill-will-have-her-revenge-on-new-orleans Song, "Helen Hill Will Have Her Revenge on New Orleans" (2011) by the band Thou, from the album ''To the Chaos Wizard Youth'' (Vendetta Records, 2011) ] * [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDPLxffM_Mk Video, Thou – Helen Hill Will Have Her Revenge On New Orleans (live, Wondderroot, Atlanta, GA, Aug. 25, 2011), published Aug. 26, 2011. ] * [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtFNhVAOJws Video, Thou – Helen Hill Will Have Her Revenge On New Orleans (live), published Jan. 30, 2014 ]
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