The 70th Flaherty Film Seminar

ONWARD!
June 26–29, 2025
NYC, Global Pods + Online

TEAM | PARTNERS | PHOTOS

ONWARD! The 70th edition of the Flaherty Film Seminar took place from June 26–29, 2025.
This special anniversary edition offered an immersive program of screenings and carefully moderated conversations. As an internationally recognized forum for collective inquiry into the form and function of non-fiction cinema, the Seminar fostered field-building dialogue, encouraged the exchange of cinematic ideas across generations and cultures, and promoted the expansion of the limits of cinema itself.

Programs were held in New York City with our venue partners at Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), The School of Media Studies and the Schools of Public Engagement at The New School, and Firehouse: DCTV’s Cinema for Documentary Film; at select Global Pods, and online.

In moments of great upheaval, can cinema provide fuel for a radical paradigm shift? What cultural momentum does the cinema offer us today? The very acts of making and watching non-fiction films are rooted deep in legacies of solidarity and resistance. How does this moment call on us to nourish those legacies and forge our own?
Onward! is a call to move through obstacles with collective action. Onward! is the call of the artist, the activist, the doula, the hopeful, the grieving - the people in the midst of painful transition. Onward! is animated both by the urgency of change, and the patience to know that liberation must come, will come. Onward! embraces the battlefield as the terrain of greater possibility. Freedom is an ongoing state of insistence that is carried forward in each act of making, questioning, resisting, remembering. Onward! is to stay the course and trust in the process of change.
Movement is not solitary. Onward! calls for collectivity, for curiosity, for entanglement, for hope, for solidarity across generations. Onward! is propelled by calls from the past, which too believed in the potency of the moment, and of all moments yet to come. Onward! celebrates coexisting and futurities.
Onward! is the irresistibility of resistance.

The program was curated collaboratively by past seminar programmers Janaína Oliveira (2021), Carlos Gutiérrez (2007), and Richard Herskowitz (1987, 1990, 1999 & 2004), alongside programming partners Christopher Harris, Zaina Bseiso, and Louis Massiah.

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Revisit the full program on the 2025 Seminar Programs page.

Artists

Read about the Artists on the 2025 Seminar Artists page.

Meet our 2025 Fellows

Meet the 2025 In-Person and Online Fellows.

About The Fellowship

Learn more about the 2025 Seminar Fellowship process.

2025 Flaherty Fellows, Photo by Zile Lepins courtesy of The Flaherty

Learn about our International Pods

The Seminar took place simultaneously June 26-29th in Global Pods in
Salaya — Thailand
New Delhi — India
Warsaw — Poland
Porto & Lisbon — Portugal
Bogotá — Colombia
Toronto — Canada
Los Angeles — USA.

GATHERINGS

Learn about our International Gatherings

In addition to the official Seminar Pods, a series of smaller scale, self organized Gatherings took place worldwide between June 26 and July 31 2025.

ONLINE EXPERIENCE

The 2025 Online Experience was held on Eventive and ran from June 26 through July 31st and took place concurrently with the in-person Seminar in NYC, with three live online programs on June 26, 28 and 29.

The Online Experience included:

Access to all 2025 seminar films on the online platform (subject to regional availability per film)
Curated readings resources, and discussion prompts
Global discussion and connection opportunities

The Online Experience was a mix of synchronous and asynchronous engagements for participants. Scheduled group screenings and facilitated discussions for online audiences were organized between June 26 and July 31 at varying times to accommodate the global online audience. Additionally, online experience participants enjoyed a curated list of readings and resources and have access to all Seminar films online during and after the Seminar.

Galleries

Fellows | June 25

Opening Night at MoMA | June 26

TEAM

Team

Samara Chadwick – Executive Director

Juan Pedro Agurcia – Program Director

Anne de Mare – Grants and Special Projects Lead

Anisa Hosseinnezhad – Fellowship Programmer

Maliyamungu Muhande – Brand Art Direction

Zile Liepins – Graphic Design & Photography

Simone Barros – Programs Coordinator

Elizabeth Kroner – Production Coordinator

Nehal Vyas – Online & Digital Communications Coordinator

Michael Krish – Online Advisor

Eynar Pineda – Production Consultant

Jules Rosskam – Online Fellowship Coordinator

Sun Park – Fellows Coordinator

Programmers

Carlos Gutiérrez and Zaina Bseiso

Richard Herskowitz and Louis Massiah

Janaína Oliveira and Christopher Harris

Fellowship Program Contributors

Jemma Desai and Ethan Philbrick

Fellowship Doulas

Lynne Sachs

John Muse

Samia Labidi

Pod Managers

Aisha Jamal – Toronto

Chalida Uabumrungjit, Kong Rithdee & Sanchai Chotirosseranee – Thai Film Archive

Mariale Mosquera – Cinemateca de Bogotá

Emile Fegté / Klein — Los Angeles

Maile Costa Colbert — Lisbon

Anuj Malhotra – New Delhi

Amarante Abramovici – Porto

Magdalena Kielbiowska – Warsaw

Board of Directors

Pablo de Ocampo, President

Dessane Lopez Cassell, Vice President

Ted Kennedy, Treasurer

Patti Bruck

Steve Holmgren

Ruth Somalo

Juana Suárez

PARTNERS

Thank You to Our Partners

We believe in the vital support of public funders! The Flaherty’s programs are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. They are also supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. Strategic counsel on interaction strategy and design provided by the Brown Institute for Media Innovation.

NYC VENUE PARTNERS

The Seminar in New York City was made possible through our partnerships with the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), The School of Media Studies and the Schools of Public Engagement at The New School, and Firehouse: DCTV’s Cinema for Documentary Film.