The 71st Flaherty Film Seminar takes place October 8–11, 2026, at The Campus at Marlboro Music in Marlboro, Vermont. The Fellowship program begins a day earlier, on October 7.

The Seminar takes place at The Campus at Marlboro Music, a 560-acre property in the southern Vermont town of Marlboro, between Brattleboro and Wilmington, off Route 9. The campus includes early 19th-century farmhouses, arts and academic buildings, residence halls, expansive views, and forests with hiking trails. This year's Seminar is designed as a single-location gathering: all screenings, discussions, and meals, will take place on campus.

The 71st Flaherty Film Seminar turns toward images that resist disintegration: works that excavate what empire and erasure have buried beneath landscapes, archives, and the surfaces of images themselves. Across this year's program, acts of remembering, reworking, and refusing take shape through gestures of archival intervention, fragmented narration, and embodied recollection, exploring how memory is constructed, displaced, or reclaimed.

This year’s Flaherty Film Seminar is being programmed internally by the Flaherty team, including board and staff.

The Seminar program is still evolving but we can confirm that there will be a minimum of 5 film programs this year. Seminar programming begins on the afternoon of Thursday, October 8 and concludes on the night of Saturday, October 10th. The morning of Sunday, October 11th will be dedicated to breakfast and departure. The Fellowship program begins a day earlier, on October 7th.

The Seminar is an exploratory process that has embraced the concept of non-preconception since its founding. We do not announce the Seminar program beforehand — except for the programmers and production team, no one knows what they will be watching until the lights go down in the cinema. Upon request, film notes and content advisories are made available to participants before each screening begins. The Seminar is programmed as a continuum, wherein program sessions relate to, build on, and expand upon one another.

This year's Seminar is intentionally smaller in scale, with approximately 88 participants in total, including artists, fellows, and general registrants. We believe this size allows for the kind of sustained, intimate exchange that has long defined The Flaherty experience.

All participants are required to register in advance. Please visit our Registration page.

The Flaherty also offers a select number of funded Fellowships for the Seminar each year. Learn more about the Fellowship program and how to apply on our Fellowship page.

The Flaherty offers tiered pricing for registration. In-person registration ranges from $1,000 (Commuter, no housing) to $2,000 (Pay-It-Forward/Institutional, housing included). The Online Experience is available starting at $50. Full details are on our Registration page.

All in-person registration tiers include access to all screenings, discussions, and artist conversations; all meals from dinner on October 8 through breakfast on October 11, catered by the Brattleboro Food Co-op; and full access to the Online Experience through the end of October.

The Institutional Participant and Standard Participant tiers also include on-campus housing. The Commuter tiers do not include housing. See our Housing & Travel page for nearby lodging options.

Commuter registration includes everything except on-campus housing and daily transport to/from The Campus at Marlboro Music. You are responsible for arranging your own accommodations nearby. All meals on campus are still included. Visit our Housing & Travel page for recommended inns and hotels close to campus.

Meals are catered by the Brattleboro Food Co-op. When you register, you'll be asked to share your dietary restrictions, and we will do our best to accommodate your needs.

Yes. All participants are responsible for booking and covering the cost of their travel to and from Vermont. Hartford's Bradley Airport is approximately 90 minutes from campus, and Boston's Logan Airport is about 2.5 hours by car. Amtrak also offers daily train service to Brattleboro, which is about 20 minutes from campus. See our Housing & Travel page for more details.

Yes. The Online Experience runs concurrently with the in-person Seminar and remains available through the end of October 2026. It includes access to all Seminar films on the online platform (subject to regional availability), curated readings and resources, and global discussion opportunities. Online registration is available starting at $50. All in-person registrants receive full access to the Online Experience as part of their registration.

We are actively exploring Pod partnerships for 2026. More information will be shared as plans are confirmed. Stay tuned!

Yes. The Flaherty offers a limited number of funded Seminar Fellowships each year. If you are part of an academic or cultural institution, we also encourage you to explore the possibility of having your institution support your participation as professional development. Visit our Fellowship page for more information, or contact Anisa Hosseinnezhad, our Fellowship Lead, at fellowships@theflaherty.org.

Cancellation requests received by August 1, 2026, will be refunded minus a 20% processing fee. After August 1, no refunds will be issued. Please email info@theflaherty.org to request cancellation.

The Campus at Marlboro Music is a rural Vermont campus with hilly terrain, stairs, and limited elevator access. We are committed to working with participants individually to address accessibility needs. Please don't hesitate to share yours so we can plan ahead together. Please contact info@theflaherty.org with any questions about accessibility or to discuss what you need to support your participation.