Onward! Seminar SOLD OUT in NYC! Last Chance to register for Pods + Online | Meet our Collaborators + Team

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THE SEMINAR in New York City
is SOLD OUT

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Onward! The 70th Flaherty Film Seminar:
Don’t miss your chance to join us!

We are officially sold our for the seminar in NYC but there are still many ways to participate in the 70th Flaherty Film Seminar. Register today for Pods, Gatherings, or Online.

If you are in New York City, purchase tickets to Opening Night at MoMA (starting June 19) or add your name to our waitlist.

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Last Chance to Register!
International Pods & Gatherings

If you can’t make it to NYC, find us in a Pod or Gathering near you. Registration closes on June 20th

🇹🇭 Salaya, Thailand
🇮🇳 New Delhi, India
🇵🇱 Warsaw, Poland
🇵🇹 Porto, Portugal
🇵🇹 Lisbon, Portugal
🇨🇴 Bogotá, Colombia
🇨🇦 Toronto, Canada
🇺🇸 Los Angeles, USA

🗺 Worldwide Locations

🇦🇷 Buenos Aires, Argentina
🇦🇺 Melbourne, Australia
🇦🇹 Vienna, Austria
🇧🇩 Dhaka, Bangladesh
🇧🇴 La Paz, Bolivia
🇯🇵 Kazuno City, Japan
🇱🇹 Vilnius, Lithuania
🇲🇽 Mexico City, Mexico
🇵🇪 Lima, Perú
🇹🇹 Trinidad and Tobago
🇹🇷 Istanbul, Turkey
🇺🇾 Montevideo, Uruguay

🎬 US Locations

Humboldt, CA
Miami, FL
Kansas City, MO
Johnson City, TN
Saint Louis, MO
Atlanta, GA
Minneapolis, MN
Detroit, MI

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Other ways to participate: Online Experience

Connect with a global community online. The online experience is a mix of synchronous and asynchronous events launching June 26 and available through July 31.

Group screenings and facilitated discussions will be scheduled at varying times to accommodate a global audience. Enjoy a curated list of resources, and access film programs online during and after the Seminar. 

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Bill Brand, from MASSTRANSISCOPE, 1980

A FREE Pre-Launch Event for ONWARD! 70th Flaherty Seminar’s Online Experience

Ghosts in the Garden: Livestream and Conversation with Bill Brand

Join us for a special pre-launch livestream and conversation as we celebrate our dear friend Bill Brand, whose work inspired this year’s ONWARD! Seminar visual identity.

Ghosts in the Garden features a selected retrospective of Bill’s films streaming on Eventive, the platform we are using for our Online Experience this year, followed by a live conversation on Discord about his artistic practice, his relationship with the Flaherty, and the design process behind this year’s brand.

This is also a chance to explore and test out the 2025 Online Experience—no registration required, just curiosity and a good internet connection.

📅 12th June, 2025 at 7:00 PM EST
🎥 WATCH - Livestream Free via Eventive, link below
💬 CHAT - Live, post screening discussion on the Flaherty Discord
📍 Free and open to all

🖼 This program is presented on the occasion of ONWARD! The 70th Flaherty Seminar (June 26-29, 2025) and Ghosts in the Garden, a two person exhibition with Katy Martin at Court Tree Collective Industry City, 51 35th Street, Building #5, 2nd floor, Suite B236, Brooklyn, New York opening June 14 at 5 pm EST.

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Meet our 2025 Programming Collaborators

In the spirit of collaboration that has been central to the seminar since its inception, our Programmers Janaína Oliveira, Carlos Gutiérrez, and Richard Herskowitz each invited a programming partner to join them in the curation process. We are thrilled to have these three brilliant minds joining us for the 70th seminar, Onward!

Christopher Harris

Christopher Harris makes films and video installations that read African American historiography through the poetics and aesthetics of experimental cinema. His screenings include solo screenings at the 2024 Whitney Biennial, Tate Modern, Tiff Lightbox, and the Museum of Modern Art, among many others; a two-person screening with Su Friedrich at the Cinémathèque Française in Paris, and group screenings at the New York Film Festival, the International Film Festival Rotterdam, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, among many others. Harris is the recipient of a 2025 United States Artists Fellowship, the 2023 Herb Alpert Award in the Arts in Film/Video, a 2020–2021 fellowship at Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, and a 2015 Creative Capital Award as well as many other awards. Harris is Professor of Visual Arts at Princeton University and splits time between Princeton, New Jersey and Coralville, Iowa.

Zaina Bseiso

Zaina Bseiso is a filmmaker, educator, and curator. She is a Senior Programmer at the Points North Institute and the co-founder of Bahia Collective, a community of filmmakers dedicated to collaborative practice and curation. Bseiso additionally serves on the programming board of LA Filmforum. Currently in post-production, her first feature, Todo Lo Sólido, has received support from Sundance, Sandbox Films, Visions Sud Est, among others. In 2024, she served as a curatorial fellow at the Flaherty Seminar and filmmaker-in-residence at the Duke DocX Lab. She holds an MFA in Film and Video from CalArts.

Louis Massiah

Louis Massiah is a documentary filmmaker and the founder of the Scribe Video Center in Philadelphia, a media arts center that provides production workshops to community groups and emerging media makers. As an educator and institution builder, Massiah has developed production methodologies that assist first time makers author their own stories, including the Precious Places Community History project, a collection of 150 collaborative documentaries; Muslim Voices of Philadelphia; The Great Migration - A City Transformed and currently The Tenants of Lenapehoking in the Age of Magnets, an oral history of an African-American community. Massiah’s documentaries include TCB – the Toni Cade Bambara School of Organizing, W.E.B. Du Bois – A Biography in Four Voices, The Bombing of Osage Avenue, Cecil B. Moore, two films for the Eyes on the Prize II series, and A is for Anarchist, B is for Brown. A MacArthur Foundation “genius award” fellow, he is currently an A.D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University. Massiah has presented at the Robert Flaherty Film Seminar and has been a co-programmer and board member.

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The 2025 Flaherty Seminar Team. From left to right, top to bottom: Zīle Liepins, Samara Chadwick, Nehal Vyas, Sun Park, Simone Barros, Elizabeth Kroner, Juan Pedro Agurcia, Anne de Mare (and Luigi), and Anisa Hosseinnezhad (and Spud).

Meet the people that make The Flaherty

Team

Samara Chadwick | Executive Director
Juan Pedro Agurcia | Program Director 
Anne de Mare | Grants and Special Projects Lead
Anisa Hosseinnezhad | Fellowship Programmer
Maliyamungu Muhande | Brand Art Direction
Zile Liepins | Graphic Design & Photography
Simone Barros | Programs Coordinator
Elizabeth Kroner | Production Coordinator
Nehal Vyas | Online & Digital Communications Coordinator
Michael Krish | Online Advisor, with the Brown Institute for Media Innovation
Eynar Pineda | Production Consultant
Jules Rosskam | Online Fellowship Coordinator 
Sun Park | Fellows Coordinator

Board of Directors

Pablo de Ocampo | President 
Dessane Lopez Cassell | Vice President
Ted Kennedy | Treasurer
Patti Bruck
Steve Holmgren
Ruth Somalo
Juana Suárez

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Welcome (back!) to the Board,
Patti Bruck

The Flaherty is delighted to welcome (back!) Patti Bruck, whose long commitment to The Flaherty Film Seminar has buoyed us through many decades. Patti is a filmmaker and educator. Her award-winning documentary and experimental films have screened at festivals internationally. From 1990 to 2014, she taught film and video production at the University of Colorado, Boulder. She has served on the Black Maria Film Festival selection committee and on granting panels for the Colorado Council on the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Pennsylvania Arts Council. She has also served on the Boulder Arts Commission and is currently Selection Committee and Programming Adviser for the Boulder International Film Festival. She was President of The Flaherty Board of Directors from 2002 to 2010.

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30% OFF Flaherty Books

Deep dive into the history of The Flaherty Film Seminar – explore the brilliant research of Patty Zimmermann and Scott MacDonald in their compilations: The Flaherty: Decades in the Cause of Independent Cinema and Flash Flaherty. Thank you to our partners at Indiana University Press.

We are happy to share a 30% discount code: UFLHRTY30

““Part myth and half truth, The Flaherty Seminar’s reputation as a hot bed of polemical debate attests to its absolute centrality to the documentary tradition. And here’s the proof: historical context provided by the authors and scintillating encounters generated between filmmakers and participants. Raw, incendiary, insightful: it’s a treasure to behold.”

”

— Bill Nichols, author of Introduction to Documentary on The Flaherty: Decades in the Cause of Independent Cinema

Order here:

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The 70th Flaherty Film Seminar is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. We sincerely thank all our partners who support the Seminar, Fellowship, Pods, Gatherings, and our wider work as an independent organization.

ONWARD! 70th Seminar Registrations + Fellowship Applications NOW OPEN

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.

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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.”

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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! 

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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.

70th Flaherty Film Seminar: June 26-29 in NYC with Global Pods

70th Flaherty Film Seminar

Thursday, June 26 – Sunday, June 29, 2025
New York City, with Global Pods
and an Online Experience

This year’s Seminar will gather participants for four days in New York City, alongside a series of Global Pods and an Online Experience. To commemorate The Flaherty's 70th anniversary, the program will be curated collaboratively by past seminar programmers Janaína Oliveira (OPACITY, 2021), Carlos Gutiérrez (SOUTH OF THE OTHER, 2007, with Mahen Bonetti), and Richard Herskowitz (1987 Seminar, 1999 Seminar with Orlando Bagwell, and chair of the Flaherty's 50th Anniversary Committee). Venue details will be announced in March, alongside registration opening.

Jemma Desai will contribute programming to the 2025 Flaherty Fellowship program, which will run parallel to the seminar, June 25th - June 29th, and convening in person at Firehouse: DCTV’s Cinema for Documentary Film and online. A few sponsored fellowship spots are still available: if you or your institution would like to sponsor a fellowship, please see below.

We are eager to share the 70th seminar experience with you, wherever you may be. Whether you join us in NYC or in Pods around the globe, we invite you to join us! 

Stay Tuned! Registrations and Fellowship Applications open in March.

Until then, we invite you to read more:

"Commercial culture silences debate; The Flaherty liberates it and invigorates ideas. And that is a difficult, messy, uncomfortable, and disquieting experience that should never be sanitized. Each participant should find their way out of philosophical and artistic knots their own way – but always in consort with other like-minded seminarians. If the media art world thrives on romantic individualism, The Flaherty is just the opposite; it is a sort of collective intellectual and artistic sauna that cleanses the body and the soul.”

— The indomitable Patricia Zimmermann reflects on the Seminar’s 50th Edition. Read more.

Sponsored Fellowship Slots Still Available!

Each year, Flaherty is proud to collaborate with a wide range of institutional partners to support the Fellowship program. These partners can be academic institutions (recent partners include UC Boulder, CalArts, Duke, Harvard, Northwestern, University of Melbourne, University of Westminster) as well as arts organisations around the world (such as Anti-Archive, Black Public Media, CAAM, Corrientes, Palestine Ministry of Culture, Seminario El Público del Futuro.). 

For our 2025 Fellowship Program, a few slots are still available for institutions looking to sponsor one or more Fellows, in person in New York City, and/or online around the world.

Fellowship Partners help provide a unique experience for Fellows, connecting them with peers, artists, and programmers while facilitating career development through mentorship and specialized programming. 

The Flaherty offers four tiers of support for the 2025 Fellowship program, available for both in-person and online participation. Partners may either fund and select a Fellow from their organization to attend the Seminar or contribute directly to the Flaherty to support an Open Call Fellowship.

If you are part of an institution that has the funds to support a 2025 Flaherty Fellow, please complete this Fellowship Partner Interest Form by Friday February 28th. Thank you!

Yearning

In summer 2023 The Flaherty announced an unprecedented one-off programmer-in-residence model, working with Jemma Desai over two years towards a seminar proposal for 2025 tentatively titled Yearning:

What might happen if we used the phenomenology of yearning to appraise our cultural production infrastructure? Not yearning to belong to what we have, but yearning to be longing: to embody a desire for something else? (…)

We have learned a great deal from our ongoing work with Jemma. At this time we long for more space and gentleness to allow the process to continue unfurl. And so it is with love for what’s still to come that we announce the postponement of Jemma Desai’s seminar until 2026*, while acknowledging the many ways our process with her has contributed to the design of the 70th annual seminar we will present in 2025.

*in full knowledge that 2026 is very much unknown, for so many of us, at this time.

Thank you to all our partners: Ford Foundation, NYSCA, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, DCTV, William H. Donner Family Foundation, Wave Farm MAAF for Organizations, and more to be announced soon!

🎥✨ Support The Flaherty!

70 YEARS OF CURIOSITY, COMMUNITY & COMMITMENT TO INDEPENDENT CINEMA

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70 YEARS OF CURIOSITY, COMMUNITY & COMMITMENT TO INDEPENDENT CINEMA 〰️

For seven decades, The Flaherty has created vibrant spaces for collective inquiry, screening innovative works and fostering complex conversations that have deep reverberations in the field.  Flaherty has hosted upstarts and legends, screened masterworks and provocations, survived trends, ruptures and the passage of time - all while remaining focused on exploring cinema as a catalyst for the conversations we long to be having. 

The Flaherty has remained relevant for the last 70 years because of its responsiveness and commitment to its politics and participants, who find at the Seminar a haven to engage differently and more deeply with cinema.  We don’t use the term ‘participants’ lightly: each person who joins the seminar makes the seminar what it is.

Our belief in independent cinema is enshrined in our own institutional independence. Our roots are scrappy, irreverent, independent. Our board is composed of artists, academics, arts administrators, and elders; we have no major donors directing our mandate, and have been free of corporate sponsorship since our inception. Growth has been tricky — our future demands resources and partners that help us continue to expand our reach without compromising our integrity.

For decades, the Seminar ran primarily on volunteer labor, largely inaccessible registration fees, and modest donations. As we divest from the first two, we need our community’s help to get it across the finish line of the year. If you have the means, please consider shining some light our way by making a tax-deductible donation today.

A sincere thank you, 
on behalf of our modest and mighty team,

Samara
Executive Director, International Film Seminars, Inc.

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Jumana Manna, Julian Ross, Fang-Tze Hsu, May Adadol Ingawanij, Riar Rizaldi at the Thai Film Archive. Photo by Vinai Dithajohn.

Read & Listen: Press from TO COMMUNE

• Cici Peng, ‘Distant Voices: A new edition of the Flaherty Film Seminar’. Tank Magazine, Issue 101. Winter 2024.

• Jean Ma, ‘To Commune: The 69th Flaherty Film Seminar.’ Film Quarterly vol. 78, no. 2, Winter 2024, pp. 68-73. 

• Anuj Malhotra, ‘Portions of an Immense Lava: Notes on a Film Seminar Designed as an Open Map,’ Senses of Cinema, issue 111, November 2024. 

• *Jooyeon Lee, ‘천 개의 조각 [A Thousand Pieces],’ Material online publication, September 2024. 

• *Wood Lin, Wanling Chen, Pei Hwa, ‘排除預設、反思權力，重探電影的交流可能性──拜訪2024 年佛萊赫提電影研討會, [non-preconception, reflections on power, and the possibilities of film at the 2024 Flaherty Film Seminar]’ Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute online publication, August 2024.

• Devika Girish, The Film Comment Podcast: Flaherty Film Seminar 2024, July 3 2024.

*articles in Korean and Chinese are legible (enough) via google translate.

Thank you for Communing! An exceptional 69th Flaherty Film Semina

Thank you for Communing with us!

All photography by Vinai Dithajohn (unless credited otherwise.)

“Hope from solidarity through film.”
(In-Person Participant)

“It was a new, inspiring experience that helped me understand a new point of view on cinema. I met inspiring, open minded people, who sparked hope for building community.” (Gathering Participant)

“Mind blowing cinema, challenging and excellent discussion!” (Online Participant)

“The best cinema event I have ever attended!”  
(In-Person Participant)

“The warmth of the organisers and the participants was more than I could have hoped for. It had such a collaborative atmosphere, such kindness and care, while not avoiding difficult subjects. ”  
(In-Person Fellow)

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To Commune Seminar Participants at the Thai Film Archive, June 2024

The 69th Flaherty Film Seminar brought over 900 of us into communion: 220 people gathered at the Thai Film Archive in Salaya, Thailand for To Commune. 215 more gathered online, and another 465 or more took part in informal gatherings in 44 locations worldwide.

We were astonished at how powerfully we experienced cinema as a physical, bodily, and ecstatic group experience. Warmed by the kindness and capaciousness of our hosts and team, we were able to take risks, be candid, curious, playful, and speak our hearts and minds. 

Thank you to our indomitable programmers, May Adadol Ingawanij and Julian Ross, for the deeply felt program; thank you to our hosts and partners at the Thai Film Archive; and thank you to each and every Guest Artist who attended – 

Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook

Chikako Yamashiro

Ho Tzu Nyen 

Jumana Manna

Korakrit Arunanondchai

Paijong Laisakul & Isan Film Group

Riar Rizaldi

Saeed Taji Farouky

Sriwhana Spong

 – for the worlds you shared with us, for shaking and reshaping our own inner worlds. Thank you as well to featured artists Kore-eda Hirokazu, Lawan Jirasuradej*, Mohammad Malas, Ousmane Sembène & Thierno Faty Sow and Thamrong Rujanaphand and Sasithorn Ariyavicha* for the archival works that transcended time.

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To Commune Film Programs and
Artist List is now online

Saeed Taji Farouky, Jumana Manna & Riar Rizaldi in conversation at the Thai Film Archive following Programs 3 & 4. June 28 2024.

Stills from :

1. Korakrit Arunanondchai, No history in a room filled with people with funny names 5. Courtesy of the artist.

2. Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook, Village and Elsewhere: Artemisia Gentileschi’s Judith Beheading Holofernes, Jeff Koons’s Untitled and Thai Villagers. Courtesy of Ekarach Prangchaikul.

3. Chikako Yamashiro, Your Voice Came Out Through My Throat screening at the Thai Film Archive.

4. Sriwhana Spong, a hook but no fish. Courtesy of the artist.

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To Commune in your Communities

We hope that To Commune will long continue to reverberate as a shared resource!

The Flaherty invites educators, programmers, and cultural workers & organisers to share these programs widely. We are happy to facilitate connections to seminar artists and programmers. Please note The Flaherty will only support screenings that in turn support the artists and/or programmers (screening fees, speaking fees, travel).

Please email seminar@theflaherty.org if you would like to organize a To Commune screening and discussion.

The 2024 In-Person Fellows in conversation with Riar Rizaldi. June 27 2024.

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ขอบคุณมาก | thank you!

The Thai Film Archive and Flaherty teams at the Thai Film Archive, July 2 2024.

A tremendous ขอบคุณค่ะ / thank you to the phenomenal Thai Film Archive team, lead by Chalida Uabumrungjit, Kong Rithdee, Sanchai Chotirosseranee. Thank you for such a generative partnership, and for hosting us with such generosity. The facilities of the Thai Film Archive provided a setting that enlightened us all: bringing us higher, and deeper, into communing with cinema and one another. 

Thank you to the stalwart spirits of our brilliant production team – Juan Pedro Agurcia, Sheetal Prajapati, Kissada Kamyoung, Prima Sirivasuntra, Siriwimol (Por) Boonpitak, Anisa Hosseinnezhad, Jules Rosskam, Anne De Mare, Zile Liepins, and Eynar Pineda, as well as the masterful technical team at TFA for creating such a solid infrastructure for us to play in. Deep gratitude as well to our photographer Vinai Dithajohn for capturing much of our experience with his lens.

Thank you to our guest facilitators: Amal Khalaf, Anocha Suwichakornpong, Anuj Maholtra, Bo Wang, Dessane Lopez Cassell, Graiwoot Chulphongsathorn, Jemma Desai, Komtouch Napattaloong, Kong Rithdee, Lawan Jirasuradej, Pablo de Ocampo, Philippa Lovatt, Toby Wu, Zakariya Amataya, and Zoe Butt.

Thank you to our online experience partner, UnionDocs Center for Documentary Art, all our Gathering Hosts and venues at 44 locations worldwide. And thank you to our generous Fellowship partners, aonline and in-person To Commune Fellows, who joined us from 12 countries around the world, and contributed generously to the Seminar this year.

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Community News

The Flaherty’s role is as a nexus of connections during — and beyond — the seminar. If you have news or projects you would like to share with our wider community, please let us know!

The Film Comment Podcast: Flaherty Film Seminar 2024

Our inaugural Patricia Zimmermann Memorial Fellowship recipient Devika Girish speaks with seminar programmers Julian Ross and May Adadol Ingawanij—as well as Thai Film Archive deputy director Kong Rithdee and Thai filmmaker Anocha Suwichakornpong—to discuss the making of this year’s seminar. Their engaging conversation charts how the works of featured artists—Jumana Manna, Chikako Yamashiro, Riar Rizaldi, Ho Tzu Nyen, Saeed Taji Farouky, Korakrit Arunanondchai, and more—elucidate overarching themes of solidarity and communion.

LISTEN

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Thank you to all who contributed and communed and thank you to our many Seminar and
Fellowship partners for this exceptional event possible:

To Commune Online Experience in partnership with UnionDocs

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Onsite registration is sold out – join our global audience online!

The Flaherty is delighted to be partnering with UnionDocs Center for Documentary Art to present the Online Experience for the 69th Flaherty Film Seminar, To Commune. This year’s film programs will be hosted on the UnionDocs Membership Channel, available around the world to registered Online Experience and Onsite Seminar Participants from June 27 through July 21, 2024.

The Online Experience of To Commune will launch concurrently with the Seminar in Thailand on June 27 with films becoming available online day by day as they are screened at the Thai Film Archive. For the Online Experience, we’ll offer two live online synchronised programs, on June 27 and 30, exclusively for online participants to gather and discuss ideas and films. Online discussions will be moderated by guest and fellow participants. 

The complete program of films will remain online and accessible until July 21 to registered participants all over the world, along with complementary materials offered by the artists and curators.

Registration for the Online Experience costs $100 USD per person and will remain open until July 21. Registration includes both live events. Please note that in-person discussions held in Thailand will not be streamed for the online program and some films may not be available online due to permissions and streaming rights. 

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Live Online Programs

Opening Discussion: To Commune, An Offering
Thursday June 27, 2–4 pm EST (New York) | 7–9 pm BST (London) 

Join us on Zoom for our opening discussion exploring the theme of this year’s seminar in small discussion groups.  We know how much each of you has to offer to our gathering. Our group is large and everyone has different ways to contribute.

In honoring that, we invite all participants to bring an offering – something to share at invited moments or at a time you choose in smaller groups or one-to-one conversations. The form of the offering – an object, a phrase, a song, a gesture or something else – is up to you.

The offering might take the form of something that:

• invites sharing (even if the sharing consists of questions or ruminations rather than neatly a formed presentation) 

• resonates with the themes of our gathering (even mysteriously)

• might be a seed for others (growing something within them)

Program 9 & Discussion
Sunday June 30, 9 am–12 pm EST (New York) 8–11 pm GMT (Bangkok) 

Log on to the UnionDocs Membership Channel and tune in for a synced viewing of Program 9 of the Flaherty Film Seminar, To Commune.  Following the viewing, all participants are welcome to join our zoom space for moderated post-film discussions. 

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Stay Tuned!

Soon we’ll be sharing some exciting opportunities to gather informally to watch Seminar programs together around the world. If one is happening in your region, you’ll can sign up to commune in person!

Welcome to our 2024 Seminar Fellows and Partners!

Meet our 2024 Seminar Fellows 

Flaherty is thrilled to announce our 2024 Seminar Fellows! 27 Fellows will be joining us in Thailand this summer and 13 will be part of the Online Fellowship Experience. This year’s Fellowship program is proud to welcome Fellows from a wide range of geographical regions including Australia, Columbia, Cambodia, Thailand, and the U.K. among others! 

Each year, Flaherty works with generous Partners to support emerging professionals in documentary film to attend the Seminar and be part of a special Fellowship experience. Fellows are selected either by our sponsoring Partners or through our Open Call which ran from March 1 - March 29 this year.

Please welcome the 2024 Seminar Fellows! 

Anti-Archive
Daniel Mattes
Kavich Neang
Savunthara Seng

California College of the Arts
Boya Zhang 

California Institute of the Arts
Trisha Bhattacharya
Linda Wei
Utkarsh*

Center For Asian American Media (CAAM) Sophia Rhee

Centre for Research and Education
in Arts and Media (CREAM)
Juanita Onzaga
Rugun Sirait

Colgate University
Yi Cui

Corrientes
Laura Dávila Argoty*
Ángela Jiménez Cano*

Flaherty Curatorial
Zaina Bseiso
Paola Buontempo*
Nicky Ni*

Flaherty Professional Development
Sophia Haid*
Ivey-Camille Manybeads Tso

LEF New England
Maxime Cavajani
Pauline Shongov

Fund for the Development of Cinema (FDC) Colombia
Ana Bravo Pérez

Northwestern University
bree gant
Xiaolu Wang

Palestine Ministry of Culture
Rana Abushkhaidem*
Ibrahim Handal*

Patricia Zimmermann Memorial
Devika Garish 

Seminario El Público del Futuro
Edward Aroldo De Ybarra Murguia*
Fernando Vílchez Rodríguez*

Stanford University
Del Holton

Thai Film Archive
Chanasorn Chaikitiporn
Chayanin Tiangpitayagorn

University of California San Diego
Jun!yi Min*

University of Colorado Boulder
Emma Piper-Burket
Nandi Pointer

University of Melbourne
Shannon Owen

Waterman II Fund at the Philadelphia Foundation
Ireashia Bennett
Micah Magee
Nick Moncy*
Elham Sadeghian*
Chun Wang

*Online Fellows 

2024 Fellowship Open Call Selection Committee

The Fellowship Open Call applications were reviewed and selected by a committee of former Seminar Fellows. We are incredibly grateful for their time, expertise, and care!

Brit Fryer, 2023 Flaherty Fellow
Wren Gardiner, 2021 Flaherty Fellow
Rami George, 2021 Flaherty Fellow
Chisato Hughes, 2023 Flaherty Fellow
Andrea Hoyos, 2023 Flaherty Fellow
Dylan Huw, 2023 Flaherty Fellow
Abby Lord, 2023 Flaherty Fellow
Moorisha Moodley, 2023 Flaherty Fellow
Nehal Vyas, 2022 Flaherty Fellow
Claudia Zamora-Valencia, 2023 Flaherty Fellow

Expanded 2024 Fellowship Partnerships 

With this year’s Seminar taking place at the Thai Film Archive, Flaherty is excited to welcome both existing and new US-based and International Fellowship Partners for the 69th Film Seminar!  Through their support, we are welcoming Fellows from all over the world! We want to thank each of them for providing our Fellows the opportunity to be part of this year’s Seminar and supporting Flaherty’s work.

International Fellowship Partners

Anti-Archive (Cambodia)
Centre for Research and Education in Arts and Media (CREAM) (United Kingdom)
Corrientes (Honduras/Colombia) 
Ministry of Cultures, Arts, and Knowledge of Colombia (Columbia)
Palestine Ministry of Culture (Palestine) 
Seminario El Público del Futuro (Mexico) 
Thai Film Archive (Thailand) 
University of Melbourne (Australia) 

U.S. Fellowship Partners* 

California College of the Arts  
California Institute of the Arts 
Center For Asian American Media (CAAM) 
Colgate University 
Kate Cashel Fund George Stoney Fellowship 
LEF Foundation 
Northwestern University
Patricia Zimmermann Memorial Fellowship 
Stanford University
University of California San Diego 
University of Colorado Boulder
Waterman II Fund at the Philadelphia Foundation

*Some of our 2024 Fellowship Partners are under demands from their students and faculty to divest from all economic ties to the genocide in Gaza. Many of our past and present Fellows are currently participating in encampments on campuses. We support peaceful student and faculty protesters across the globe, and their calls for immediate and permanent ceasefire, and for war profiteers out of education (& the arts).

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Our tremendous thanks to all our generous individual donors for making
the inaugural Patricia Zimmermann Memorial Fellowship possible. 

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2024 Seminar Supporters 

The 69th Flaherty Film Seminar is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

This project is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts and Ford Foundation JustFilms. 

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Community News

The Reel Deal
Friday May 31, 2 pm PT

Join Film Fatales for a webinar about funding unscripted feature films with representatives from Sundance, The Gotham, and Firelight Media.
LEARN MORE

Semaine de la Critique, Cannes

Valentina Homem’s (Flaherty Fellow, 2016) short film The Girl and The Pot will premiere at La Semaine de la Critique. In a dystopian world, a girl breaks her ceramic pot which holds a secret within, opening portals to a parallel universe in which the creation of a new world is finally possible.

LEARN MORE

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April 2024: 69th Seminar Art by Nipan Oranniwesna, Programmers, New Fellowship Fund

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The Flaherty is pleased to share this year’s Seminar poster with artwork by Nipan Oranniwesna. Living and working in Bangkok, Oranniwesna’s mediums range from painting, sculpture, mixed media, site-specific installation, photography, and video works. His practice delves into personal and collective memories, dealing poetically with spaces, urban cartography and the geo-body of nation/state—ideas that intersect and explore this year’s Seminar theme, To Commune, through visual language. 

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Seminar Registration is Open
…with Scaled Ticket Pricing!

Seminar Registration rates are scaled and different based on your location. For those living outside of the U.S. or Canada, rates range from $250 USD to $550 USD. For those living within the US or Canada, rates range from $750 to $1500 USD. The higher rates in each range are meant for those who have institutional support. For those paying out of pocket, we encourage you to choose a lower rate that is affordable for you.

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May Adadol Ingawanij and Julian Ross

The Flaherty is excited to be working with programmers May Adadol Ingawanij and Julian Ross for the 69th Flaherty Film Seminar, To Commune.  It is through their vision that the Seminar found its way to the Thai Film Archive this year and we are so grateful for this partnership in 2024! In addition to co-programming this year’s seminar, May and Julian are also collaborators for their ongoing curatorial project Animinstic Apparatus, exploring affinities between contemporary Southeast Asian artists’ moving image and animistic practices. We are honoured to welcome May and Julian to continue their ongoing creative exchange as programmers for this year’s Seminar. 

“We’re thrilled to be working with the Flaherty and the Thai Film Archive on relocating the Seminar to a region that’s so rich in multitudes and home to so many of the most dynamic contemporary filmmakers and artists. The Flaherty’s model of championing nonfiction cinema through fostering sustained collective dialogues is a source of immense curiosity for filmmakers, artists, cinephiles and thinkers around the world. Holding the Seminar in Thailand opens up the possibility of attendance for many people for whom the gathering would otherwise be inaccessible. We’re hugely energised by the openness of spirit of colleagues at the Thai Film Archive and the Flaherty. To make alliances across such different contexts, and to bring the trust to try something new together, feels like the kind of optimism necessary for withstanding the times. We’re really looking forward to returning to Thailand to spend time with everyone at the Seminar, thinking and dreaming together with cinema.”

– May Adadol Ingawanij and Julian Ross

May Adadol Ingawanij | เม อาดาดล อิงคะวณิช is a writer, curator, and teacher. She is Professor of Cinematic Arts at the University of Westminster where she co-directs the Centre for Research and Education in Arts and Media. May publishes regularly in English and Thai for a wide range of publications. Her recent and ongoing curatorial projects include Legacies, and Animistic Apparatus.

Julian Ross is a researcher, curator and writer based in Amsterdam. He is an Assistant Professor at Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society, a film program advisor for IDFA, and co-organiser of Doc Fortnight at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, with Sophie Cavoulacos. He is co-director of the interdisciplinary research centre ReCNTR and editorial board member of Collaborative Cataloging Japan.

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Patty Zimmermann at the 1994 Flaherty Film Seminar; contact sheet

Patty Zimmermann Memorial Fellowship Fund
in partnership with Visible Evidence

We are thrilled to announce that The Flaherty and Visible Evidence are partnering to co-create a new Fellowship Fund in honor of the late and great Patty Zimmermann (1956-2023). Together, our two organizations are fundraising for a Patricia Zimmermann Professional Development Fellowship Fund, with the proceeds to be divided equally between The Flaherty Seminar and the Visible Evidence Conference.

Read The Flaherty’s Memorial to Patty Zimmermann

A tremendous thank you to our 54 donors so far. Please join us now in making any donation – large or small – to make the Patricia Zimmermann Fellowship Fund a reality. ONWARDS!

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Community News

bam.org

RETROSPECTIVE

Pearl Bowser
April 19-20-21

Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM)
30 Lafayette Ave, Brooklyn, NY

The Boom Is Really An Echo: Selections from the Pearl Bowser Media Collection features rare films highlighting Bowser’s deep connections to Brooklyn as a home, a location for Black activism, and a space for creativity, cultural expression, and community celebration.

Pearl Bowser (1931-2023) worked closely with The Flaherty for over fifteen years, as the organizer (alongside Madeline Anderson) of the Flaherty Black and Third World Filmmakers Mini-Seminar (1975), as Board President (1986-1989) and as Programmer of the groundbreaking 35th Flaherty Film Seminar 1989.

Read The Flaherty’s Tribute to Pearl Bowser in our October Newsletter

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Onyeka Igwe, still from The names have changed, including my own and truths have been altered

THANK YOU

Onyeka Igwe with Imani Nikyah Dennison 
Flaherty/Colgate Global Filmmaker in Residence

Thank you to Colgate’s Film and Media Studies program for hosting last night’s screening and discussion with Colgate/Flaherty Global Distinguished Filmmaker in Residence Onyeka Igwe and Flaherty Curatorial Fellow (2023) Imani Nikyah Dennison.

LEARN MORE

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Rose Lowder, still from La Source de la Loire  

OPEN CALL

Doc’s Kingdom 2024
Call for Programmers

Doc’s Kingdom – International Seminar on Documentary Film is accepting proposals from programmers for its 2024 edition, to be held in Odemira, Portugal, November 19–23. Film and moving image programmers from all nationalities who have participated in a previous edition of Doc’s Kingdom are invited to apply by April 30, midnight (GMT).

LEARN MORE

REGISTRATION IS OPEN for the 69th Film Seminar in Thailand!

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To Commune
69th Flaherty Film Seminar
Thai Film Archive, Salaya, Thailand
June 27–July 2, 2024

Register for the 69th Flaherty Film Seminar today!

This year’s Seminar offers scaled ticket pricing. There is a limited number of tickets at each level—we encourage you to register as soon as possible. Please remember that your registration fee does NOT include your accommodations or travel . 

After you complete registration, please visit our Hotel and Travel page for guidance on booking accommodations in Salaya. We also encourage you to read through our updated 2024 Seminar FAQs to help you prepare for your trip! 

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Apply for a Fellowship

Are you interested in applying for one of our funded onsite or online Fellowships? Applications are open until March 29, 2024!

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Community News

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS | DEADLINE: MARCH 25

Camden International Film Festival

Calling doc filmmakers! The Camden International Film Festival is accepting submissions for the 20th Edition of the festival! We’re looking for the next generation of nonfiction filmmakers. Submit now to be a part of this transformative festival experience in stunning coastal Maine.
APPLICATION DEADLINE  March 25, 2024

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FUNDRAISER

Film Fatales Online Auction
March 5–19, 2024

This Women’s Herstory Month, join us in uplifting Film Fatales, an intersectional and action-oriented arts nonprofit and advocacy organization championing underserved filmmakers of all marginalized genders. Their online auction will feature incredible opportunities from today’s top filmmakers.

Bid at Charity Buzz!

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