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Remembering Helen Hill
It was with shock and grief that I read the news about filmmaker and Columbia native Helen Hill, shot and killed in her New Orleans home ("Columbia Native Dies in Shooting," The State, Jan. 5).
Helen Hill was one of the most wonderful people I've ever known: warm, loving, selfless, talented, sweet-natured, generous. Although she was unassuming and soft-spoken, Helen had a charisma that endeared her to everyone. Her art and films are special works.
The press coverage documented how Helen, her husband Paul, and 2-year-old son, Francis, came to live temporarily in Columbia after evacuating their New Orleans home during Hurricane Katrina. Because she was in town during those months, many of us got to meet her for the first time. Serendipitously, this brought Helen to Columbia at the time of USC's Orphan Film Symposium (March 2006). Shortly before the event, she showed me some of her amazing animation as well as home movies she recorded of her family. Helen had rescued her films from her flooded New Orleans home and begun to salvage and restore them.
Not all of the material could be saved. But she, in her creative, life-affirming way, made something special out of remnants of her work. She was beginning to have the water-damaged home movies restored and also incorporating the look of the damaged film stock into her animation. Those who heard her speak about and show these precious fragments at the final screening of the Orphan Film Symposium were moved. We were lucky to have filmmaker Helen Hill in our midst. She made many fans during the festival, some Columbians and many from across the country.
Among those smitten with Helen and her work were the film archivists who created the Center for Home Movies. They worked with her to organize a special New Orleans version of their annual Home Movie Day. An image taken from one of Helen's damaged films was selected for the national preservation awareness campaign. The center also began to collaborate with her to raise funds to preserve and restore her films.
Since the horrific news of Helen's death was reported, I have heard from dozens of people all over the country. They are sharing stories of their magical encounters with her. Most had only recently met her during the Columbia event. But all agree she was a rare and inspirational figure. Now there are memorial events and screenings in many places: New York, L.A., Columbia and Halifax, Nova Scotia (where she was a kind of very young godmother to the local film and artist community).
HelenHill.org features video, photos, and texts by and about her. One may also listen to her speaking in Columbia about the rescue and restoration of her flood-damaged home movies at www.sc.edu/filmsymposium/Orphans_Sound/orphans.htm.
Husband Paul Gailiunas was also shot, but he is out of the hospital. He is a doctor, dedicated to helping the poor. Memorial funds can go to Doctors Without Borders or to the Helen Addison Wingard Scholarship Fund at Columbia College.
I share all of this with you in hopes that your readers will know that a beautiful soul lived among us, born and raised in Columbia. Helen Hill still inspires me, through her films and through the way she lovingly lived her too-short life.
Dan Streible
New York, New York
Going Smoke-Free
I'm not usually one who responds to articles, good or bad, but I couldn't agree
more with the Chew on This column in the Dec. 20 issue, regarding Motor Supply
Co.'s decision to go smoke-free.
As a nonsmoker, I can't stand the odor created by cigarettes. Even when they're
extinguished after being lit, they still stink. With so many other cities and
states going smoke-free in restaurants and bars ‹ some for many years now ‹ I
don't understand why more restaurants don't stop waiting for the city to run
their business and just do it themselves.
I enjoy nights out in the Vista and Five Points, but I find I can't stay out
long because I can't breathe with all the smoke. Rather than worrying about
what business they might lose from smokers, why don't businesses think about
what they would gain from nonsmokers? I for one would stay out later, thus spending
more money, if I was able to breathe better by not having the smoke.
Steve Cohen
Columbia
Finding Parents
Bravo for your article on Sweet Georgia Brown and her son's determination to
find out more about his dad ("Baby
of Sweet Georgia Brown," Dec. 20).
I also am a biracial child who has been looking for my parents since I was 18
years old. When my adopted father passed away when I was 16, my mother gave
me a stack of papers that the South Carolina Children's Bureau had given them
when I was adopted at the tender age of 3 months. I have run into many, many
brick walls trying to locate one or both of my birth parents for several years.
I wish Michael McCoy the best of luck in his search for his father and would
love to see a follow-up story if and when he does ‹ or does not ‹ find out about
his birth father.
Keep your chin up, Michael.
P. R. Lewis
Columbia
Resolve to Go Vegetarian
It's been an interesting year for folks who eat. We started the year in the
grip of a bird flu pandemic scare. In April, the Chicago City Council banned
the sale of cruelly produced foie gras. Last month, hundreds of Taco Bell and
Olive Garden customers were sickened by produce contaminated by E. coli pathogens.
This month, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization reported that meat and
dairy production accounts for 18 percent of all greenhouse gases responsible
for global warming. It is also the governing factor in water pollution, water
use and land degradation. And all through the year, scientific reports linked
meat and dairy consumption with elevated risk of colon, stomach, pancreatic,
prostate, breast and ovarian cancers. More studies linked it with obesity, diabetes
and high blood pressure.
There is a definite pattern here. It may be time to explore the rich variety
of veggie burgers, dogs, deli slices, heat-and-eat dinners, and soy-based milk,
cheese and ice cream in our local supermarket, as well as the more traditional
fare of vegetables, nuts, grains and fruits. Did I mention that it makes for
a delicious, easy-to-keep New Year's resolution?
Charles Truitt
Columbia