2022 Flaherty NYC

Opacity Spirals

programmed by Janaína Oliveira and Inney Prakash

Opacity Spirals

The Flaherty is thrilled to announce the 2022 Spring Flaherty NYC, Opacity Spirals, programmed by Janaína Oliveira and Inney Prakash in collaboration with Maysles Documentary Center.

The series runs April 14th to April 28th at the Maysles Documentary Center and features a reconfiguration of several films from the 2021 Flaherty Film Seminar — Opacity — with the addition of three films by the Otolith Group. By introducing the voices of another programmer and set of artists, the program hopes to highlight the way dialogues can be extended through ongoing interventions and by finding resonances as they echo through the world.

The idea of spirals that served as a metaphor for the narrative structure for the curatorial proposal returns here in the series made with the Maysles Documentary Center. Opacity Spirals simultaneously proposes a return to the 66th Flaherty Seminar program and its expansion to other paths.

Programmed by Janaína Oliveira and Inney Prakash, Opacity Spirals features works by five artists presented at the Flaherty Seminar (Deanna Bowen, Larissa Sansour & Søren Lind, and Arjuna Newman & Denise Ferreira da Silva) in dialogue with three films by the Otolith Group.

2021: Opacity

In July 2021, the 66th edition of the Robert Flaherty Film Seminar took place. Initially scheduled for 2020 and postponed due to the Covid-19 global pandemic, the Seminar was held online for the first time in its history. It was also the first time the Seminar had a Brazilian curator responsible for the program: Janaína Oliveira. Inspired by the reflections of the Martiniquan writer and poet Édouard Glissant, she made the notion of Opacity the theme of her program.

Brought into the universe of film culture, the notion of Opacity served as a prompt, an invitation to the displacement of the hegemonic ways of experiencing cinema, whether concerning aesthetic and narrative propositions or geographical positions. Central to the curatorial proposal was the exploration of non-linear perceptions and reflections, taking maximum advantage of the fact that the Seminar takes place with the moving image outside of its familiar setting in a movie theater.

Programs

01: April 14

sum of the parts: what can be named
Deanna Bowen (2010, 18’)

Otolith I
Otolith Group (2003, 22’)

In the Future They Ate from the Finest Porcelain
Larissa Sansour & Søren Lind (2016, 28’)

Missing Time
Morgan Quaintance (2020, 15’)

83 min: followed by in-person conversation between Deanna Bowen, Janaína Oliveira, and Inney Prakash

02: April 21

Space Exodus
Larissa Sansour & Søren Lind (2009, 5’)

Serpent Rain
Denise Ferreira da Silva & Arjuna Neuman (2016, 29’)

Nation State
Larissa Sansour & Søren Lind (2012, 9’)

Otolith II
Otolith Group (2007, 48’)

89 min: followed by discussion

03: April 28

The Paul Good Papers at Notasulga
Deanna Bowen (2012, 23’)

Another Decade
Morgan Quaintance
(2018, 27’)

Otolith III
Otolith Group (2009, 49’)

2022 Flaherty NYC Programmers

Janaína Oliveira

Film scholar and freelancer programmer Janaína Oliveira is a professor at the Federal Institute of Rio de Janeiro (IFRJ) and was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at the Center for African Studies at Howard University. She is the founder of the Black Cinema Itinerant Forum (FICINE - www.ficine.org ) and was the Flaherty Film Seminar programmer in 2021. Oliveira lives and works in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Inney Prakash

Inney Prakash is a film curator, programmer, and writer based in New York. He is a cinema programmer at Maysles Documentary Center and the Founder/Director of Prismatic Ground, a new festival that will hold its second edition from May 4-8, 2022.

This program is made possible by the generous support of

COVID POLICY

With the COVID-19 pandemic ongoing, we continue to closely monitor and follow all local, state, and national public health guidelines. To protect the health and safety of our staff, guests, and audiences, we’ve instituted the following policies for all our Flaherty NYC events:

All staff and event attendees will be required to show proof of COVID-19 vaccination. People who cannot show proof of vaccination, who have had a recent COVID infection, or who are currently experiencing symptoms will be asked to join events remotely, when possible.

Masks will be required during all indoor events. Audience members who arrive at screenings without a mask will be provided one.

Hand sanitizer will be provided at all locations.