  The Orphan Film Symposium's Helen Hill Award was created to honor the legacy of filmmaker, educator, Columbia, SC native, and "orphanista" Helen Hill. The Film & Media Studies Program at the University of South Carolina, the Nickelodeon Theatre of Columbia, South Carolina, and New York University's Department of Cinema Studies confer the award to support innovative independent filmmakers. Previous recipients of the award are Jimmy Kinder and Naomi Uman. This year, the Helen Hill Award is given to two media artists: Danielle Ash and Jodie Mack. Presenting the awards are USC faculty members Susan Courtney and Laura Kissel. Danielle Ash is a Brooklyn-based artist and media professional who received her MFA in Experimental Animation from CalArts in 2008. Her most recent film is Pickles for Nickels, which can be previewed at DanielleAsh.com. Jodie Mack received her MFA in Film, Video, and New Media from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In 2009, she completed an animated musical, Yard Work Is Hard Work. She teaches in the College of Computing and Digital Media at Depaul University. --------------------------- Susan Courtney directs the Film & Media Studies Program at the University of South Carolina. Her book Hollywood Fantasies of Miscegenation: Spectacular Narratives of Gender and Race, 1903-1967 was published by Princeton University Press in 2005. Laura Kissel is an associate professor of media arts at the University of South Carolina and a documentary filmmaker. Her works include Beyond the Classroom: China (2007), winner of the CINE Gold Eagle and three Telly awards, and Cabin Field (2005), which was awarded the Jurors' Citation Award at the 2006 Black Maria Film and Video Festival. --------------------------- The Helen Hill 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 go to a filmmaker whose work celebrates and embodies such things as creativity, selfexpression, animation, small-gauge film, homemade movies and all things made by hand, collaboration, generosity, liberal spirituality, activism, love, play, community, and connection. Contributions to fund this award are best as checks payable to: THE NICKELODEON THEATRE Mail checks to: Susan Courtney, Director Film & Media Studies Program University of South Carolina Columbia, SC 29208 ---------------------------- To see video interview with Helen Hill at the 5th Orphan Film Symposium, go here. To listen to Helen introduce a selection of her films at the 5th Orphan Film Symposium, listen below or go here: |