Celebrate Helen Hill on May 8th

Saturday, May 8 @ 3:00 & 9:30 p.m.
HELEN HILL BIRTHDAY FUNDRAISER: Zeitgeist is pleased to present this Helen Hill Birthday Fundraiser, featuring a special short preview from the newly completed The Florestine Collection, Helen’s last film. This one-day only event will be Saturday, May 8th, at Zeitgeist Multi-disciplinary Arts Center. There will be two screenings, at 3:00 pm and 9:30 pm. The event is by donation. Funds raised go towards finishing The Florestine Collection, to create sound and master prints in 16mm film, Helen’s preferred screening format. Animator Helen Hill received a prestigious Media Arts Grant from the Rockefeller Foundation for The Florestine Collection in 2004. The film was inspired by a huge collection of handmade dresses that Helen found in a garbage pile. Helen was murdered during a home invasion in New Orleans in early January 2007, and her widower Paul Gailunias has been working to finish the film in accordance with Helen’s intentions. Sunday, May 9th (Mother’s Day) would have been Helen’s 40th Birthday.
Currently Helen’s films are archived in the Harvard Film Archive, and her film Scratch and Crow, made in 1995 and which will be screened at the Helen Hill Birthday Fundraiser, was named to the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry in 2009. Also featured at the Helen Hill Birthday Fundraiser will be other shorts by filmmakers inspired by Helen, the band The New Dopey Singers (3:00 pm), a Fresh Fashion Flash by HowlPop (3:00 pm) and author Cheryl Wagner will read a short excerpt about Helen and her animations from her book Plenty Enough Suck to Go Around (9:30 pm). For more information, call Courtney Egan at (205) 393-5588 or Rene Broussard at (504) 352-1150. By donation. All proceeds benefit completion of the film.