Pablo de Ocampo, President

Pablo de Ocampo is a curator whose practice is rooted in artists’ film, while also engaging more broadly with the moving image across a wider field of performance, music, and contemporary art. In his work, de Ocampo has continually prioritized risk and experimentation alongside an ethic of care, generosity, and support. de Ocampo’s curatorial position has always insisted that radical gestures in artistic practice must necessarily exist within, and in relation to, a radical re-orientation of how art institutions actively engage the many publics and communities around them. Currently, he lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he works at the Walker Art Center. He has previously worked at Western Front in Vancouver, Canada; Toronto’s Images Festival; Cinema Project in Portland, Oregon; and was Programmer of the 59th Robert Flaherty Film Seminar, History is What’s Happening.

Dessane Lopez Cassell, Vice President

Dessane Lopez Cassell is a New York-based editor, writer, and producer. Her work spans film and visual art and their intersections, with a particular interest in documentary, artist’s moving image, race, and gender.

Dessane’s writing has been published in various outlets, journals, and books, including the Los Angeles Times, The Criterion Collection, Film Comment, Hyperallergic, and Seen journal, as well as catalogues issued by The Museum of Modern Art, El Museo del Barrio, the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and UnionDocs. An itinerant curator and former museum worker, she has organized exhibitions and screenings at MoMA, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Studio Museum, Anthology Film Archives, Metrograph (in partnership with Abrons Arts Center), and the Black Women’s Film Conference, in addition to programming for BlackStar Film Festival from 2018 to 2023.

Prior to joining The Flaherty’s board, Dessane was a Flaherty/Ford curatorial fellow, a Flaherty NYC programmer, and worked on numerous seminars as a staff member.

Ted Kennedy, Treasurer

Ted Kennedy is an artist based in New York and Michigan. His moving image and installation work has been screened and exhibited at places like the Art of the Real, Microscope Gallery, VISIONS, Onion City Film Festival, BAM, Media City Film Festival, Orphans, 67 Ludlow and various psychology conferences. He has served on the boards of the Ann Arbor Film Festival and UnionDocs and co-programmed the Flaherty NYC fall 2014 series with David Dinnell. Ted received a BA in Economics from the University of Michigan and an MFA from Bard College. He is currently working on a documentary about the behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner.

Juana Suárez

Juana Suárez combines careers as a scholar, film critic, and media archivist/preservation activist. Her research interests include Media Preservation, Film Archives, Media Archeology, Administration of Memory Institutions, Film Studies, Latin American/Latino-a Cinema, Cultural Studies and Literature, Women's and Gender Studies, and Immigration Studies.  She is an Associate Professor at the NYU Martin Scorsese Department of Cinema Studies, and director of the Moving Image Archiving and Preservation Program (MIAP). Working with NYU MIAP professors, alumni, and students, she has organized and participated in the NYU - MIAP Audiovisual Preservation Exchange Program (APEX) since 2013. APEX has taken place in Colombia, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Spain, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Greece, Ecuador, and México (Chiapas and Guadalajara); this program has forged partnerships with almost 50 archival institutions in those countries, becoming a major catalyst for collaboration and strengthening of global audiovisual preservation projects.

In addition to being a trustee for the Flaherty Seminar, she serves on the Board of Directors of the Digital Preservation Outreach and Education Network (DPOE-N), and has served on the Board of Directors of the Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA). In all of them, her advocacy is oriented to the awareness of income, gender, and opportunity gaps at the international level so that we share archival and educational resources while also acknowledging and including knowledge from global geographies. 

Ruth Somalo

Ruth is a Spanish visual artist, filmmaker, curator, researcher and educator based in New York. She is interested in creating a non judgmental non anthropocentric space to discuss and embrace emotions, myth, fragility, death and ritual. Her latest work is concerned with taboos of the female body, chronic illnesses, patriarchal structures and narrative medicine, human remains, tears, ritual healing, experiences of loss and the legacies of the Witch Hunts. Her feature and short films have been shown in theaters, festivals and museums internationally in cinemas and institutions such as Anthology Film Archives, Reina Sofía Museum, Cineteca de Madrid/Contemporary Art Center Matadero de Madrid, San Sebastian International Film Festival, Cinéma du Réel, Mimesis, ADFF, L’Alternativa, Rural Life Museum, Documenta Madrid, MOMA PS1 (Expo1) the EYE Film Institute in Amsterdam, Verdi Cinemas in Madrid, and Zumzeig Cinema in Barcelona. 

Ruth works as Senior Programmer at DOC NYC, DocumentaMadrid, The Architecture and Design Film Festival and the DOCMA monthly screening series at Cineteca Matadero in Madrid. Some of her independent programs include "The affection for small things” (Cineteca Matadero de Madrid), "Filming One’s own Ghosts”, "Ritual and Magic: Portals for Audiovisual Creation & Healing”, “Holy Fluids and Absent Wounds”, “Queer Utopias” (Union Docs) and the Flaherty NYC Series “Broken Senses” (Anthology Film Archives). 

Ruth holds a PhD. in Cultural Studies by Autonomous University of Madrid and her dissertation Mending Objects: Mourning, Healing and the Self in Contemporary Nonfiction Film was awarded Suma Cum Laude. She is a member of the international research group Hist-Ex (Anthropology of Experience) at the Spanish National Research Council, currently working on a project that re-evaluates gesture as a form of community building and as a mark of political distinction. Ruth also works as a mentor and seminar Instructor for Union Docs Center for Documentary Art and as a creative advisor for non fiction films. She was the President of The Flaherty Board of Trusteesand currently serves as the chair of their Programming Committee.

Steve Holmgren

Steve Holmgren is an Entertainment Attorney & Film Producer from the Midwest. Holmgren specializes in independent film & television legal through his boutique firm FILM ARTS LEGAL. As a Producer, he has worked with numerous filmmakers including Sky Hopinka (małni—towards the ocean, towards the shore ), Adam and Zack Khalil (INAATE/SE/), Matthew Porterfield (Putty Hill; I Used to be Darker), Marie Losier (The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye), Cory McAbee (Crazy & Thief), and John Gianvito (Far From Afghanistan ft. filmmakers Travis Wilkerson, Soon-Mi Yoo, Minda Martin and Jon Jost). He has also recently been part of the producing team for EMPTY METAL (Adam Khalil and Bayley Sweitzer), WHIRLYBIRD (Matt Yoka), 499 (Rodrigo Reyes), as well as Anthony Banua-Simon’s CANE FIRE. He was at UnionDocs from 2009-2014. Holmgren has served on juries at film festivals such as CPH: Pix, Oberhausen, Black Maria, and the Riviera Maya Coproduction Lab. He has collaborated with film arts organizations in granting and professional development initiatives such as IFP NY, SFFilm, the Brooklyn Arts Council and Creative Capital. Holmgren previously worked in film production with Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner’s HDNet Films, film sales with Cactus 3, and in institutional distribution with Gartenberg Media Enterprises. He is an alum of the Cannes Producers Network program and has taught at Pratt Institute’s Film/Video Dept. He also likes to travel and collects shoes. BAR ADMITTANCE CALIFORNIA (2017); NEW YORK (2018)

Elected Board Presidents of The Flaherty

Ruth Somalo, 2020-2022
Pooja Rangan, 2018-2020
John Bruce, 2016-2018
Chi-hui Yang, 2012-2016
Ann Michel, 2009-2012
Patricia Bruck, 2004-2009
Patricia Bruck and Tom Johnson, 2002-2003
Lucy Kostelanetz, 2000-2001
Juan Mandelbaum, 1998-1999
Pearl Bowser and Juan Mandelbaum, 1996-1997
Richard Herskowitz, 1993-1995
Tom Johnson, 1990-1992
Jack Churchill, 1987-1989
Pearl Bowser, 1986-1987
Esme I. Dick, 1983-1986
Emile de Brigard, 1981-1983
Jay Ruby, 1977-1981
William Sloan, 1974-1977
Austin Lamont, 1973-1974
Dorothy Oshlag Olson, 1971-1973
Willard Van Dyke, 1968-1971
Erik Barnouw, 1960-1968

Executive Directors of The Flaherty

Jon-Sesrie Goff, 2018-2020
Anita Reher, 2012-2018
Mary Kerr, 2006-2012
Margarita de la Vega Hurtado, 2002-2006
L. Somi Roy, 1998-2001
Kiersta Gostnell, 1997-1998
Michelle Materre, 1995-1997
Bobbi Tsumagari, 1994-1995
Sally Berger, 1989-1994
Esme I. Dick, 1982-1988
Barbara Van Dyke, 1964-1982