jeanelle augustin joins the Flaherty Board of Directors | Pablo de Ocampo elected President | love for Julia Reichert & let’s all be lichen
Pablo de Ocampo
Board President
jeanelle augustin
Board Member
The Flaherty Board of Directors is delighted to welcome jeanelle augustin as its newest member and has elected Pablo de Ocampo to the role of Board President.
Both votes were passed unanimously on Friday, December 2, alongside additional changes to the Executive Committee. This shift ushers in a time of substantial growth, accompanied by internal restructuring and strategic planning. The Board will work alongside our staff to engage in a structured introspection, engaging with the institution's past to articulate a joint vision for the future of The Flaherty.
The Board and staff sincerely thank Ruth Somalo for her service, stewarding the organization through the pandemic, and a period of many transitions. We also thank outgoing Co-Vice Presidents Ariella Ben-Dov and Jonathan Marlow for two full terms of dedication. Much gratitude to Simone Leigh, Adam Piron, and Genevieve Yue who have completed their terms on the Flaherty Board, and to Jamie Dobie and Shai Heredia who will be moving to an advisory capacity.
About jeanelle augustin
jeanelle augustin is a film programmer and funder of Haitian and German descent interested in redefining investment and embracing risk. Currently, they lead the Original Voices Fellowship, presented by NBCU Academy and NBC News Studios, supporting nonfiction filmmakers who identify as – or showcase stories highlighting social issues affecting – women, LGBTQ+, communities of color, and people with disabilities. Born and based in New York City, her work is centered on the visual and sonic culture of the future — what does creative freedom look, sound, and feel like?
About Pablo de Ocampo
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.
Julia Reichert at the Flaherty Seminar 1978. Image courtesy Amalie R. Rothschild.
Julia Reichert (1946-2022)
The Flaherty was heartbroken to hear of the passing of Academy Award-winning filmmaker Julia Reichert.
Julia was a Flaherty supporter, attendee, and guest artist (1994, 1983, 1978 1974, 1971). She was a co-founder of New Day Films, conceived during a Flaherty Seminar in 1971.
The outpouring of love to Julia reflects the loving, supportive, and creative being she was. Hearing her talk about her work and her passion for film was always a powerful experience. Our hearts go out to all of her friends and family and especially to her partner Steve Bognar and her former filmmaking partner and New Day co-founder (and Flaherty attendee) Jim Klein, father of their daughter Lela Klein.
This feminist collaborative tribute continues Julia's insistence that the collective matters most of all.
Struggles, Solutions, Solidarities: Julia Reichert (1946-2022)
By Patricia R. Zimmermann
Julia sat in a circle in the basement of the Student Union at the University of Iowa surrounded by women college students in flannel shirts, jeans, and work boots drinking coffee to power them through a night at the library to study for final exams.
It was 1976. I was a senior in college. I had just watched Julia Reichert and Jim Klein’s Union Maids (1976) in the campus theater. I don’t know who brought her to campus. I don’t know who introduced her. I don’t remember the discussion. I was enthralled to meet a woman filmmaker, as the only woman my cinema studies classes mentioned was a Nazi woman (Leni Riefenstahl). I was excited to see a film about unions, as my grandfather worked as a labor union activist to organize miners.
“If I had to describe what I consider her most important quality, among the many, it would be her ability to inspire others and create solidarity in a far- flung community of filmmakers and ordinary people who responded to her openly honest humanity.”
–Amalie R. Rothschild, Co-founder, New Day Films
“Losing Julia, who we had as a dear friend, colleague, and co-founder of New Day for the better part of our working lives is very hard. We have lost a part of our family. She will always be in our hearts and in our history.”
–Liane Brandon, Co-founder, New Day Films
let's all be lichen – thank you!
A wide-hearted thank you to the artists and audience of Flaherty NYC Season 24
On the closing night, we learned that the title let’s all be lichen was inspired by a story Jobie Weetaluktuk told his daughter, asinnajaq. Inukjuami would carry a rock with lichen on it when they set out to sea—the lichen brought good fortune and ensured a safe return to soil.
This series also set out in open water, with an opening night featuring asinnajaq and Jobie’s films, including UMIAQ SKIN BOAT, a poetic film in which a group of Inuit elders in Inukjuak builds the first traditional seal skin boat their community has seen in over 50 years.
Across nine events, let’s all be lichen invited us to leap into worlds we hardly know—within ourselves.
We are grateful to asinnajaq who carefully assembled a group of artists who embody forms of filmmaking rich in textures, care, and curiosity. Jobie Weetaluktuk, asinnajaq, Siku Allooloo, Lindsay McIntyre, Zulaa Urchuud, Lada Suomenrinne, Sunna Nousuniemi, Nivi Pederson, Zinnia Naqvi, Chris Marker, Svetlana Romanova, Chelsea Tuggle: each of your works was like a stone laced with intricate lichen. Our pockets and our minds are now full. Together, the films wove an ecosystem of possibility, an invitation to cast off from old hardened narratives and into a space of symbiosis, resilience, and beauty. Like the lichen stone, the series held the hope of a future in which we could safely land and find one another.
We are grateful to our discussion facilitators Andrew Okpeaha MacLean, Sarah Ema Friedland, asinnajaq, and Jem Cohen. Thank you to Aidan Kaye, Ben Titera, and Juan Pedro Agurcia for additional support.
We are grateful to our team and our partners the Ford Foundation, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Humanities NY, New York State Council on the Arts, Consulate General of Canada to the United States in New York, e-flux Screening Room, Anthology Film Archives, Colgate University, NYU Cinema Studies, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs.
To quote asinnajaq: “let’s all be lichen”
We've updated our Opacity Page!
Reignited by Opacity streaming on the Criterion channel, we've enriched our website's Opacity page! Explore artist websites, download our catalog, get to know programmer Janaina Oliviera, and more. We will be adding fresh content to the page for the length of our partnership with Criterion.
Community News
Extended Submission Deadline
The Film-Makers' Cooperative deadline for submitting films to the 10th annual NEW YEAR/NEW WORK festival has been EXTENDED to DECEMBER 23, 2022. Works on 16mm and Super 8 must be archived at the Coop (475 Park Ave South, 6th Floor, NYC). You must be a member of the Coop for your work to be considered. Digital submissions should be submitted to filmmakerscoop@gmail.com. No YouTube or Vimeo links accepted.
Athi-Patra Ruga photographed by Luke Doman
Congratulations Athi-Patra Ruga
Congratulations to 2021 Flaherty Seminar artist Athi-Patra Ruga, 2022 recipient of the 8th Ruth Baumgarte Art Award.
“Athi-Patra Ruga works with performance, video, textiles, and printmaking to explore notions of utopia and dystopia, materiality, and memory culture. His opulent cross-stitch tapestries, sometimes enriched with objet trouvé, have a particular radiance. Ruga's work relates the body to sensuality, culture, and ideology. Themes of identity, sexuality, memory, and power permeate his work.” –Ruth Baumgarte Art Award
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