To honor the legacy of filmmaker, film educator, animator, and Columbia, SC native Helen Hill, the award supports innovative independent filmmakers. The award funds its recipients to attend the Orphan Film Symposium where their work is screened by an eclectic audience of other filmmakers, scholars, moving image archivists, curators, collectors, students, and others working in media beyond the mainstream.
This award honors work that affirms Helen Hill's artistic legacy, lived values, and everyday passions. In a film culture dominated by corporate interests and the values of consumerism, the Helen Hill Award supports radically independent, innovative filmmaking of exceptional talent. The award will be presented to a filmmaker whose work celebrates and embodies such things as creativity, self-expression, animation, small-gauge film, homemade movies and all things made by hand, collaboration, generosity, liberal spirituality, activism, love, play, community, and connection.
Helen Hill Award recipients
2018: Nazlı Dinçel
2016: Sasha Waters Freyer
2014: Werner Nekes
2012: Jo Dery and Jeanne Liotta