COLUMBIA, S.C.-- Friends and family somberly packed a one-room theater in Columbia on Wednesday to watch a handful of short, animated films created by a South Carolina women killed during a recent outbreak of violence in New Orleans.

Helen Hill.

Helen Hill, 36, remembered as a creative woman not afraid to speak her mind through her art, was shot to death by an intruder Jan. 4, one of at least nine homicides in the Big Easy so far this year.

Hill's husband, Dr. Paul Gailiunas, was shot several times during the attack but has been released from the hospital. The couple's two-year-old son, Francis, was not injured.

"It's just the saddest thing in the entire world," said Hill's cousin, Louise Washer, who grew up in Columbia, across the street from Hill. "This is a very important, wonderful thing that is happening here in Columbia ... to be here, to celebrate her life."

The Nickelodeon theater in Columbia was filled to capacity before the first showing of Hill's work, at 11 a.m., and dozens were turned away. Reporters were not allowed inside.

A friend in the arts community who helped organize the screening described Hill's films as honest interpretations of the way Hill saw the world.

"Her films were honest," said Trixy Sweetvittles, of Los Angeles. "They had a warm, handmade feeling to them that reflected her in every way. ... There was no pretense."

A capacity crowd of several hundred people gathered Wednesday afternoon for a funeral service at St. Paul's Lutheran Church near downtown. After the service, Gailiunas walked behind the casket, both his arms in casts. Hill's mother, Becky Lewis, carried the couple's child.

In New Orleans, Gov. Kathleen Blanco met Wednesday with city officials to talk about a plan to curb the violence, which Blanco said threatens the economic recovery of the Crescent City.

On Tuesday, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin addressed the city's continuing crime problem, saying he would pull more police officers off desk jobs and pair them with Orleans Parish Sheriff's deputies on the streets.

Hill and Gailiunas met while students at Harvard University and moved to New Orleans in the early 1990s. They later lived in Canada before returning to Louisiana in 2001. They left New Orleans as Hurricane Katrina churned offshore in the Gulf of Mexico, returning several months later to help the city rebuild.

It's that desire to repair and rebuild, which she expressed through her films, for which Hill will be most remembered, said Washer, whose mother still lives in the city.

"It's exactly what New Orleans needs: people like Helen and Paul," she said. "I hope people don't give up on New Orleans."

(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)