Filmmaker Helen Hill Shot Dead in New Orleans

2007_01_05_helen.jpgSad news from New Orleans, where during a recent spate of violence one of the victims was Helen Hill, filmmaker and animation teacher who worked for many years in the Halifax scene and the Atlantic co-op, and friend of many in Toronto's indie film.

Helen was affiliated with the Super 8 festival in Toronto and numerous other activities, so this should come as a horrible shock to the local filmmaking and animation communities.

Her husband was also shot during the home invasion, which spared only their two year old child. Police have offered no theory on the killing.

Remarkably, Helen had lived through the Hurricane Katrina disaster (using some of her water damaged prints for her work Restored New Orleans Home Movies) and a good, if dated, article about her can be found at BestofNewOrleans.com, published in 2001.

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Comments (4) [rss]

That photo is really freaking me out.

I got surprisingly angry when I read this article in the Star this morning. Here you have a family who could have stayed in Canada, or gone to any American city and just enjoyed an upper-class lifestyle, or whatever. But they devote their lives to helping the poor and less fortunate - her husband set up a clinic in a housing project for people with no medical insurance. And then this happens. What a loss.

Dear Paul, I can see Helen so clearly sitting at my dining room table and hear her laugh. She was so HAPPY!!. You were so lucky to have been able to love her. Letter coming. Anita

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