October 2020
October 2020
Two Trains Runnin' Screening + Discussion
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9, 5-7 PM
PLEASE RSVP TO ATTEND THIS VIRTUAL EVENT
Son House and Skip James featured in Two Trains Runnin’
The Flaherty is proud to co-present with NYU’s Center for Media, Culture and History a screening of TWO TRAINS RUNNIN’ (80 mins., 2017), a feature-length documentary directed by Sam Pollard (2011 Flaherty Filmmaker featured in Dan Strieble’s seminar Sonic Truth) narrated by Common, and featuring the music of Gary Clark Jr., about the search for two forgotten blues singers set in Mississippi during the height of the civil rights movement. The film pays tribute to a pioneering generation of musicians and cuts to the heart of our present moment, offering a crucial vantage from which to view the evolving dynamics of race in America. This Grammy-nominated film was named one of the best documentaries of 2017 by Rolling Stone magazine.
The screening will be followed by a Q&A with director SAM POLLARD (NYU FILM & TV), producer BEN HEDIN, and anthropologist MAUREEN MAHON (NYU Music Department), author of BLACK DIAMOND QUEENS: African American Women and Rock and Roll (Duke University Press, 2020) and RIGHT TO ROCK: The Black Rock Coalition and the Cultural Politics of Race (2004).
CO-SPONSORS: NYU Center for Media, Culture and History , NYU Film & TV, Music Department, and Institute of African American Affairs & Center for Black Visual Culture; The Flaherty
How to live in the “New Normal”
The Flaherty is currently going through a lot of changes. Since March of this year, all of us in NYC and the world have been facing some of the most challenging times that as a society we’ve had to live through. But after a summer of good weather and parks to keep safe social distancing that allowed many of us to find a scape to confinement, the fall seems to have arrived too quickly with colder temperatures, new COVID hot-spots in the city, and a government currently battling the virus inside the Whitehouse.
Faced with this new reality, some of the best things we can do as a community is to take care of each other, wear our masks if going out, and keep trying to maintain contact with our loved ones despite the distance. It is time to find our strength as a collective because we have sufficient proof already that our actions do have a great impact on others.
I remember walking to Prospect Park, during one of my last summer visits to it, and coming across a spray-painted text that read: “We can disagree in a way that’s productive to arrive at decisions that foster real change.” I believe I’m not alone in thinking that it is time to have conversations about the issues that exert the most pressure on our society, but it is also time to listen to ourselves and pay attention to what can bring us peace to find meeting places in our arguments. We live in times in which more and more spaces of opinion are polarized by politicians, media, and algorithms, the question is how to change this powerful trend so that we can generate a path to openly and respectfully encounter one another.
Graffiti found near Prospect Park
Since the start of #COVID19, the creative industry has lost 2.3M+ jobs & $74B in average monthly earnings. We have a unique opportunity in front of us to reimagine the future for the arts, media, and the world at large. #CreativeFutures
Ford Foundation’s Creativity and Free Expression unit recently launched series of short essays titled CREATIVE FUTURES: 40 Provocations to Reimagine the Arts, Documentary, and Journalism. Several members of the Flaherty community contributed to the project.
fordfoundation.org/creativefutures
CREATIVE FUTURES is a series of 40 provocations by thinkers across the spheres of arts and culture, documentary film, and journalism. Upended by the social turmoil of 2020, these fields are amidst an historic reckoning—self-assessing, rethinking ethical practice, re-forging shared commitments to just futures. CREATIVE FUTURES is a ground-level complement: a set of brief, concrete action plans to fuel and facilitate the cultural transformations to come. The series will unfold through the fall of 2020 in six conversations, published in partnership with a range of media outlets. In the words of Ruth Wilson Gilmore, “What the world will become already exists in fragments and pieces, experiments and possibilities.”
CREATIVE FUTURES Participating Writers include:
Aaron Dworkin · Albert B. Mendoza · Alice Sheppard · Alissa Quart · Ana Serrano · Angie Kim · Aruna D’Souza · Brett Story · Carlton Turner · Carrie Lozano · Chris E. Vargas · Coco Fusco · Craig Santos Perez · Dark Study · Donald Young · Emily Ladau · Grace Lee · Heather Chaplin · Imara Jones · Iyabo Boyd · Jenni Monet · Jess Devaney · Lam Thuy Vo · Las Imaginistas · Lewis Raven Wallace · Louis Massiah · Luisa Dantas · Marc Bumuthi Joseph · Maria Hinojosa · Maribel Alvarez · Matt Thompson · Mazin Sidahmed · Mutale Nkonde · New Negress Film Society · Natalia Almada · New Red Order · Patty Berne · Postcommodity · Shaun Leonardo · Sonya Childress · Taylor Aldridge · Teddy Dorsette III · Thelma Golden
Publication Dates
Chapter 1: The Co-op: Collectivity and Resource Sharing (Sept 22)
Chapter 2: Place: Rootedness and Local Responsibility (Oct 5)
Chapter 3: New Paradigms: Reorganizing Systems and Power Dynamics (Oct 12)
Chapter 4: Artmaking: Aesthetic Interventions and Reformulations (Oct 19)
Chapter 5: The Money: New Economies and Financial Practices (Oct 26)
Chapter 6: New Infrastructures: Alternative Practices and DIY Spaces (Nov 2)
Our office is seeing the light for the first time after our shut down in March, this soft start is a Flaherty Family effort to bring our organization back and offer different online events to our community during these uncertain times. We don’t know how long we will exist in this “partial” mode of operations but we are hoping to come back in full force as soon as possible. If you want to contact us you can send us an email to ifs@flahertyseminar.org
If you want to share your events and screenings on our Newsletter, you can always submit your info here.
FLAHERTY FILMMAKERS
Su Friedrich and Louise Greaves
Greaves on location in Harlem with the crew of “Black Journal”
Su Friedrich (2012 Flaherty Filmmaker) just launched the new website about the films of William Greaves http://www.williamgreaves.com/ On the website you can now stream numerous films on Vimeo, read or download over 100 articles about his work, purchase licenses for universities, and in general get to know a lot more about this amazing filmmaker.
Su sent an email to the community to name and thank some of the people involved in the project: “Huge thanks for major funding from Marcia and Stanley Nelson at Firelight Media, and the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University. Huge thanks also to Sorat Tungkasiri and Mike Jorgensen for their massive technical and site-editing support, and to the many others who contributed in various ways and are thanked on the Contact page. We couldn't have done it without you.”
FLAHERTY PROGRAMMERS
Windless path: A poetic journey in the Sámi language,
the Sámi culture and the Nordic landscapes
Wednesday Oct 7, at noon ET / 6pm CEST time
Free of charge, tickets are limited.
Please join by clicking here. Code: 563190
2019 Flaherty NYC programmer Mathilde Walker-Billaud will present with Bonniers Konsthall this Wednesday: Windless path: A poetic journey in the Sámi language, the Sámi culture and the Nordic landscapes. It's a 30 min-long lecture performance by Sámi activist and artist Synnøve Persen, co-founder of the Máze Group (or Sámi Artist Group) in 1978. It includes poetry readings in Sámi and English as well as a presentation of Persen's approach to Sámi, her mother tongue, and how she has been using this language as a weapon against state assimilation and Norwegianization.
Persen usually gives this lecture in person. This online version will be preceded by a short introduction about the context of the invitation (the exhibition The World Is Gone I Must Carry You), and followed by a conversation between the artist and Mathilde Walker-Billaud.
Charles de Agustin’s Dramatic Narrative
Devon Narine-Singh (Flaherty NYC Co-Programmer 2020) is the curator of the first Multitudes Film Festival. The event will have a pre-festival screening on October 7 of Charles de Agustin's Dramatic Narrative. The film considers issues of consent, appropriation, trauma, and representation. Please email devon.narine-singh@feirstein.film to RSVP. Multitudes Film Festival will be held December 4-5.
FLAHERTY RECOMMENDS
MUBI Student Program
Know any film-loving students? Curated streaming service MUBI has launched a brand new student membership. Available to all students, no matter what they’re studying. Hundreds of incredible hand-picked films from around the world for only $6.99 a month. Learn more at mubi.com/student
Submit to our e-newsletter through our website.
We will no longer send a separate email for submissions, please visit our site anytime for instructions to submit your listing for our newsletter through the ‘About’ section of the site’s drop-down menu.
2019 Catalog Available Now!
The 2019 Seminar Catalogue includes detailed information about the 65th Robert Flaherty Film Seminar. This publication is the result of a collaboration between Flaherty / International Film Seminars, Inc. and World Records, in conjunction with the Action: the 2019 Flaherty Film Seminar, programmed by Shai Heredia.
Thank you to all our contributors: Shai Heredia, Jason Fox, Abby Sun, Joel Neville Anderson, Lakshmi Padmanabhan, Priya Sen, Ani Maitra, Pooja Rangan, Aparna Sharma, Jim Supanick, Tenzin Phuntsog, Jheanelle Brown, Chet Pancake, and Carl Elsaesser.
Edited by World Records
Design by Dan Schrempf
Copy Editing by Nadine Covert
SUPPORT the Flaherty
With your support, we will continue to bring filmmakers and audiences of all levels together. All contributions, whether large or small, help ensure the excellence of Flaherty programs for many years to come. Every donation makes it easier for us to support the artists in their art and to inspire others to create. Any amount you are able to donate will have a big impact. During COVID-19, The Flaherty can continue to present thoughtful interactive programming about the exploration of film culture and time-based media. Cinemas may be closed, but we must continue to preserve film history and hope to support the restoration of important works for many years to come. This year, your donation will be more impactful than ever.
If you prefer to donate by check please make it out to: The Flaherty, 80 Hanson Place, #603, Brooklyn, NY 11217.
About the Flaherty
The Flaherty is a media arts organization that brings together diverse, curious minds to foster an in-depth discourse on film and the creative process. We believe in the transformative power of the moving image and its ability to change how we think about film, and the world we live in. Since 1954, our unique Robert Flaherty Film Seminar, has provided an unparalleled opportunity to explore beyond known limits of the moving image and renew the challenge to discover, reveal and illuminate the ways of life of peoples and cultures throughout the world.
