FUTURE REMAINS
THE 63rd ROBERT FLAHERTY FILM SEMINAR
JUNE 17 – 23, 2017, COLGATE UNIVERSITY, HAMILTON, NY
PROGRAMMER: Nuno Lisboa
Cinema is gestural. Whether before or behind the camera, panning or traveling, shooting or editing, projecting and looking, cinema shapes a world of gestures, turning filmmakers, actors and spectators into participants in an ongoing experiment. But what happens to this experiment in an era where gestures have become rote? In a world where the rich choreography of life has been reduced to clicks and swipes?The films presented at the 2017 Flaherty Seminar see complexity and possibility in this dilemma. They show that the smallest human gesture—whether routine or spontaneous, private or public, in ritual, work or play—is the realm of a worldview. Their cinematic gestures expose complex and contradictory alliances between individuals, and pose difficult questions about the meaning of collectivity and the future of memory. The featured filmmakers differ radically in their strategies, ranging from empathy to estrangement, sensorial experience, testimonial performance, austere observation, militant protest, reverse ethnography, archival appropriation, semiotic forensics and subversive humor. What are the prospects of these different cinematic strategies when it comes to creating an archive of gestures for our uncertain future?
2017 Seminar Programmer - Nuno Lisboa
Nuno Lisboa is director of Doc’s Kingdom International Seminar on Documentary Film, where he has been a programmer since 2006. Originally inspired by the Flaherty Seminar, Doc’s Kingdom takes place in Portugal since 2000. Nuno has been teaching and writing on cinema for 15 years and is currently working on a PhD dissertation in film studies. He is on the board of Apordoc – the Portuguese Documentary Association organizing Doclisboa festival and Doc’s Kingdom seminar.
Thank you to our major Seminar funders: The Ford Foundation – JustFilms, The National Endowment for the Arts, The Johnson Family Foundation, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, The William H. Donner Foundation, The New York State Council on the Arts
Thank you to our Seminar grantee partners: COUSIN, Princess Grace Foundation-USA, and the Sundance Institute Art of Nonfiction Initiative