The Animated Films of Helen Hill
Introduced by Leslie Supnet
Saturday, December 5, 2009 at 7:00PM
Winnipeg Cinematheque
In an essay for the Atlantic Filmmaker’s Co-operative, writer and filmmaker Amanda Dawn Christie cites several filmmakers who made a significant impact on the Halifax film community. The name that stands out strongest is the late animator Helen Hill. Nobody who worked with or encountered Hill in Halifax has ever forgotten her. Christie says Hill “disrupted the flow of linear filmmaking” through her projects and filmmaking. Recently profiled on CBC’s
The Fifth Estate, Hill died tragically at a relatively young age in New Orleans in January of 2007, murdered by a stranger in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Hill won the Linda Joy Award twice and in 1996 she was voted Nova Scotia’s Best Director in Halifax’s weekly The Coast. In 1999 and 2000, she attended Phil Hoffman’s Independent Imaging Retreat, to develop her hand-processing technical skills. She utilized these handmade techniques in her filmmaking, including Mouseholes (1999) and Madame Winger Makes a Film (2001). She worked with many different styles including cell, hand drawn and stop motion animation. From her experiences, she also created a reference book of hand-crafted film techniques (Recipes for Disaster: a Handcrafted Film Cookbooklet 2001) for independent animators.