Helen Wingard Hill was an American animation filmmaker and social activist who lived in New Orleans, Louisiana. When her final film, The Florestine Collection, was released in 2011, curators and critics described her as "one of the most well-regarded experimental animators of her generation." In the pre-dawn hours of January 4, 2007, Hill was murdered by a random intruder in her New Orleans home. Her death (which was one of six murders in New Orleans that day), coupled with the murder a week before of well-known New Orleans musician Dinerral Shavers, sparked widespread civic outrage in New Orleans, and inspired thousands to march against the rampant and continuing post-Katrina violence in New Orleans. This "March Against Violence on City Hall" drew significant press coverage throughout the United States and the rest of the world.
