As part of the 8th Orphan Film Symposium taking place April 11-14, New York University’s Department of Cinema Studies and the Moving Image Archiving & Preservation program jointly with the University of South Carolina and the Nickelodeon Theatre of Columbia will present the 2012 Helen Hill Award to independent filmmakers Jo Dery and Jeanne Liotta.

Jo Dery and Jeanne Liotta Named 2012 Helen Hill Award Recipients
Jo Dery

The Award Recognizes Independent Filmmakers of Exceptional Talent

Award Presented at the 8th NYU Orphan Film Symposium, April 11-14 at the Museum of the Moving Image

As part of the 8th Orphan Film Symposium taking place April 11-14, New York University’s Department of Cinema Studies and the Moving Image Archiving & Preservation program jointly with the University of South Carolina and the Nickelodeon Theatre of Columbia will present the 2012 Helen Hill Award to independent filmmakers Jo Dery and Jeanne Liotta.

The Award honors the legacy of artist Helen Hill and her accomplishments as a filmmaker, educator, and animator.  It supports independent filmmakers of exceptional talent in film, especially within animation, who celebrate and embody Hill’s creative spirit, passion, and activism.

The 2012 Helen Hill Award recipients will screen their work for the 8th Orphan Film Symposium audience, comprising artists, scholars, archivists, curators, collectors, distributors, and others within the film world.

Jo Dery engages with a variety of media, in both experimental and narrative modes: animated film and video, drawing, illustration, installation, and artist books. She holds a BFA in Film/Animation/Video from the Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA from Goddard College. As of 2011, she teaches animation at DePaul University’s School of Cinema and Interactive Media. Jurors for the award found Dery's 16mm film Echoes of Bats and Men (2005) and her "paper puppet and computer animation" Woodpecker in Snowshoes (2008) of particular distinction. Her work is viewable online at JoDery.com.

Jeanne Liotta’s work of over 30 films ranges from Super 8 films, 16mm films, and digital video. Her first film, Blue Moon, is currently being preserved by Bill Brand of BB Optics and NYU graduate students in the Moving Image Archiving and Preservation program. Liotta has been on the faculty at the University of Colorado Boulder since 2008. Film Comment named Liotta's acclaimed Observando del Cielo (2007) one of the ten best experimental films of the decade. Her own work can be viewed at JeanneLiotta.net.

This year’s Orphan Film Symposium will be held April 11-14, 2012 at the Museum of the Moving Image, Astoria, NY.   For detailed information, visit www.nyu.edu/orphanfilm.


Jeanne Liotta

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