The visual identity for this year’s Seminar is deeply inspired by the work of Bill Brand, whose colorful public artwork MASSTRANSISCOPE embodies the spirit of movement, transition, and collective experience — ideas that are at the core of this year’s theme, Onward! As Art Director, Maliyamungu Muhande led the creative vision, drawing from Brand’s dynamic use of motion and form to shape the seminar’s visual identity. Zīle Liepins, as Designer, translated this inspiration into a striking design that reflects Flaherty’s evolving conversations, layered histories, and commitment to radical cinema.
More details on this creative process and Flaherty’s collaboration with Bill Brand will be shared soon.
ONWARD! The 70th Flaherty Film Seminar
Registrations + Fellowship Applications
NOW OPEN
ONWARD! The 70th Seminar, curated collaboratively by Janaína Oliveira, Carlos A. Gutiérrez, and Richard Herskowitz will take place June 26th to 29th, 2025 in New York City and simultaneously in:
🇹🇭 Salaya, Thailand — Thai Film Archive
🇮🇳 New Delhi, India — Khoj International Artists’ Association, in partnership with Kaddukkas
🇵🇱 Warsaw, Poland — Cultural Center for Modern Art - Ujazdowski Castle, in partnership with Faculty of Modern Languages - University of Warsaw and AMATOR Film and Education Association.
🇵🇹 Porto, Portugal — Escola Superior Artística do Porto + Batalha Centro de Cinema
🇵🇹 Lisbon, Portugal — FBAUL, in partnership with IPLUSO + IFILNOVA
🇨🇴 Bogotá, Colombia — Cinemateca de Bogotá, Instituto Distrital de las Artes - Idartes
🇨🇦 Toronto, Canada — Cinecycle, in partnership with CFMDC
🇺🇸 Los Angeles, USA — USC School of Cinematic Arts, in partnership with Dornsife Center for Ethnographic Media Arts
The Seminar in New York City will open on Thursday June 26th at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). The remainder of the public programs will be hosted at The New School on Friday June 27th and Saturday June 28th, and at Firehouse: DCTV’s Cinema for Documentary Film on Sunday June 29th.
True to our longstanding notion of non-preconception, the film programs will not be announced in advance. Schedule details can be found on our website.
*There are a limited number of tickets in each location. We encourage you to register as soon as possible. Please remember that registration does not include accommodations or travel.
Are you interested in applying for one of our Fellowships? See more below.
Participants at the 1969 Seminar, programmed by Willard Van Dyke & D. Marie Grieco
ONWARD!
4 Days. 5 Public Programs. 9 Global Pods
In moments of great upheaval, can cinema provide fuel for a radical paradigm shift? What cultural momentum does the cinema offer us today? The very acts of making and watching non-fiction films are rooted deep in legacies of solidarity and resistance. How does this moment call on us to nourish those legacies and forge our own?
Onward! is a call to move through obstacles with collective action. Onward! is the call of the artist, the activist, the doula, the hopeful, the grieving - the people in the midst of painful transition. Onward! is animated both by the urgency of change, and the patience to know that liberation must come, will come. Onward! embraces the battlefield as the terrain of greater possibility. Freedom is an ongoing state of insistence that is carried forward in each act of making, questioning, resisting, remembering. Onward! is to stay the course and trust in the process of change.
Movement is not solitary. Onward! calls for collectivity, for curiosity, for entanglement, for hope, for solidarity across generations. Onward! is propelled by calls from the past, which too believed in the potency of the moment, and of all moments yet to come. Onward! celebrates coexisting and futurities.
Onward! is the irresistibility of resistance.
Our format in 2025 — four days, five public programs — allows many more people to be present. An additional five programs, curated collaboratively with the seminar programmers alongside Jemma Desai, will be shared with the intensive Fellowship program, which runs concurrently June 25-29th.
The mini-seminar format echoes the Arden House Seminars that took place in New York City from 1971-1981, in direct response to President Nixon's request that “all funds for public broadcasting be cut immediately.” We are inspired by the creative coalescence of that moment, and wish to channel its' perseverance, organizing, and ingenuity into the present times.
Thank you to all the Elders and advisors who contributed their stories and ideas to our 70th Seminar design: Sally Berger, Bill Brand, John Bruce, Patti Bruck, Pablo de Ocampo, Jemma Desai, Jon Gartenberg, Jon-Sesrie Goff, Carlos Gutiérrez, Ed Halter, Richard Herskowitz, Steve Holmgren, Jason Livingston, Scott MacDonald, Louis Massiah, Janaína Oliveira, and Lynne Sachs, and, of course, Patty Zimmermann:
“The Flaherty does, in fact, have one enduring feature: argument. (...) Everyone seems to disagree about what The Flaherty was, is, or should be. These debates are never resolved, always opening up ideas and films to a yet to be imagined future. In the end, contentious, pitched arguments with like-minded people about cinema, politics, and art keep The Flaherty convulsing, vibrating, and pulsing with life. Never cemented to its legacies, never inert, The Flaherty can never be defined only by its history because, as Erik Barnouw declared, it has only one goal: ONWARD.”
Flaherty Global Pods
We are delighted to announce that from June 26 to 29, people in Salaya, New Delhi, Warsaw, Porto, Lisbon, Bogotá, Toronto, New York, and Los Angeles will be able to gather daily to watch Seminar programming and participate in discussions with other local participants at official Seminar Pods.
In addition to the official Seminar Pods, a series of smaller scale, self organized Gatherings will take place worldwide, with more details to be announced soon.
At each of our partner venues, groups of participants will gather for four days of in-depth engagement with Flaherty Seminar programs. Each Pod will screen the same films presented that day in New York City, fostering collective and dynamic discussions. Facilitated by local curators, artists, organizers, and discussion leaders, these conversations will be enriched by additional materials and prompts provided by the Seminar team. Some Pods will complement Seminar programs with regional film curation.
This year’s Pods are made possible by the incredible partnerships with our Seminar Pod Partners: the Thai Film Archive, Khoj International Artists’ Association, Kaddukkas, Cultural Center for Modern Art - Ujazdowski Castle, Faculty of Modern Languages - University of Warsaw and AMATOR Film and Education Association., Escola Superior Artística do Porto + Batalha Centro de Cinema, FBAUL, IPLUSO, IFILNOVA, Cinemateca de Bogotá, Instituto Distrital de las Artes - Idartes, CFMDC, Cinecycle, USC School of Cinematic Arts, in partnership with Dornsife Center for Ethnographic Media Arts.
Registrations for Pods are open now - find a Pod near you and join!
Seminar participants and Fellows at the lake. 1998 Flaherty Film Seminar programmed by Barbara Abrash & Linda Blackaby.
Fellowship
Applications for the 2025 Flaherty Fellowships are now open!
Each year, the Flaherty offers Fellowships to enable emerging and mid-career filmmakers, media professionals, and community leaders to attend the Flaherty Film Seminar. Rooted in a decades-old tradition of rigorous inquiry and open dialogue, the Flaherty Fellowship program offers an enriched Seminar experience through extended opportunities for reflection, connection, exchange, and creative exploration.
Visit the Fellowship page to learn more about the Fellowship opportunities and the eligibility criteria. The deadline to apply is Sunday, April 6.
Support for the 2025 Flaherty Fellowship program is generously provided by the LEF New England Foundation, the Waterman II Fund of the Philadelphia Foundation, the Kate Cashel Fund of The Community Foundation for the Greater Capital Region, California Institute of the Arts School of Film/Video, Duke University MFA|EDA, Cinematic Arts, and Vice-Provost of the Arts, The Film Study Center at Harvard University (FSC), Northwestern University Department of Art, Theory, Practice, University of California San Diego Visual Arts Department, Purin Pictures, Corrientes, The Nazaara Media Lab at Cornell University, California College of the Arts, Center for Documentary Media at the University of Colorado Boulder, Haverford College Department of Visual Studies, Shine Global, and The School of Media Studies at The New School.
The Flaherty thanks all our partners, who support the Seminar, Fellowship, Pods,
and our wider work as an independent organization.
