June 4, 2020
To all in our community,
As historic protests against police brutality and racial violence continue across the country, the Flaherty stands in solidarity with those working to dismantle racism and affirm that Black Lives Matter.
When we speak about serious institutional and organizational change, as filmmakers and film enthusiasts concerned with social change, we know that the real work is done when people get together to have difficult conversations.
We cannot afford to return to business as usual, and we are committed to actively reimagining the role our organization will play in the future. There is no way to remove the inherent racism that exists in institutional archives, access to filmmaking resources, venues of exhibition, and inclusion in cinematic canons. As the stewards of a collection that contains racist objects, we have a duty to ensure that the narratives around those problematic materials include diverse voices so that we have better language to interpret our past and to imagine a brighter future. We invite our peer institutions to join us in being proactive in these areas.
Like most organizations, the Flaherty has not been race neutral, but we keep learning and evolving, and we can now say that the Flaherty community stands at the forefront of supporting Black independent voices in media. We acknowledge that we haven’t always had the correct response to concerns of marginalized groups and that institutional reflection needs to be a continuous process. In that regard we are very proud to have recently redesigned our public identity to echo who we are today and the communities we wish to represent. We also understand that organizations will need time to develop a concrete plan.
In recent years, we have prioritized hiring firms led by people of color and women, and our Curatorial Pipeline Initiative was built in 2017 around the vital need for bringing new, more inclusive voices into the film curatorial world, particularly those of curators of color, and those working in the Global South. There has been some progress in the field, but what is still lacking is an array of serious professional development, mentorship and hands-on curating opportunities to build a more inclusive new generation of curatorial leadership.
Janaína Oliveira’s program for the 66th Flaherty Seminar, Opacity, originally scheduled for this June, sought to contribute to redefining the ways we globally understand blackness and the limits to understanding the varied struggles and realities black people face around the World. We encourage you to participate in our upcoming virtual event on June 13 at 4pm, which will feature a discussion with Janaína and Pablo de Ocampo of the legacy of revolutionary filmmaker Sarah Maldoror, who was featured in the 2013 Flaherty Seminar “History's What’s Happening” programmed by Pablo.
History is still what’s happening right now. We hope that these conversations are not only reactionary to the present moment, but will become entwined in the fabric of how we acknowledge the unknown and grow as a community.
In solidarity,
The Flaherty
#BlackLivesMatter
#JusticeForGeorgeFloyd #BreonnaTaylor #AhmaudArbery #SayTheirNames