History Is What’s Happening
THE 59th ROBERT FLAHERTY FILM SEMINAR
JUNE 15 – 21, 2013, COLGATE UNIVERSITY, HAMILTON, NY
PROGRAMMER: Pablo de ocampo
2013 Seminar Cover
The 59th Flaherty Seminar, “History is What’s Happening” programmed by Pablo de Ocampo examined both the frame and subject of history in cinema to understand how the social and political conditions of the past are inextricably linked to the present. Featured film and video works which employ radical gestures in both form and political position, the Seminar drew upon strategies of performance, collective production, re-speaking, and archival research to consider the ever-shifting contexts and conditions in which images from the past are watched and repurposed. Here, documentary listens as much as it tells; it produces an engaged space which hopes to create the conditions for communication. Questioning the effect of nostalgia in relationship to archives of images, the works in this program put forth the proposition that the function of history in cinema is not about remembering or recording, but about its potential for action. Invited guests include Deborah Stratman, The Otolith Group, Wendelien van Oldenborgh and Sarah Maldoror.
2013 Seminar Programmer
Pablo de Ocampo is a curator based in Toronto where he is the Artistic Director of The Images Festival. In addition to the ten-day annual festival he oversees, he has worked with the festival to curate a number of special screenings and projects which have been presented at EX-iS Festival in Seoul, Korea; Experimenta Festival in Bangalore, India; the British Film Institute in London, England; the Festival de Nouveau Cinema in Montréal, Quebec; Arsenal Institute of Film and Video in Berlin, Germany, Lightcone in Paris, France; Anthology Film Archives in New York; and SAW Video in Ottawa, Ontario. As an Independent curator he has worked with Gallery TPW to present of survey of photographic and video works by the Delhi-based, Pakistani artist Bani Abidi as well as an ongoing series of film/video-based projects for the Time Based Arts Festival/Portland Institute for Contemporary Art. Prior to his post at Images, Pablo was a co-founder and collective member of Portland’s Cinema Project.