The Robert Flaherty Film Seminar announces a call for applications for a fellowship program serving Philadelphia area film professionals and students. Fellowships are funded by the Wyncote Foundation and cover the entire registration fee as well as travel to the Seminar, which takes place June 19-25, 2010 at Colgate University in Hamilton, NY. Application deadline: April 16.
Each year the Flaherty offers a limited number of fellowships to students, filmmakers, and mid-career professionals who would be unable to attend the Robert Flaherty Film Seminar without financial support. The fellowship program is designed to promote diversity of geography, occupation, ethnicity, age, and experience levels within the participant pool, which is essential in providing the unique critical experience of the Seminar. Besides interacting with the group at large, Flaherty fellows take part in private meetings and discussions with the featured artists and other special guests in attendance (programmers, writers, academics). Fellows arrive on campus a day before the Seminar begins to learn about the history of the Seminar, discuss pre-assigned readings relating to the theme, and watch and discuss each other’s films, by way of an informal “Fellows Film Festival.”
Fellows will be able to return home with creative inspiration, experiences and connections, which will aid them in furthering their own careers and artistic endeavors.
The Wyncote Foundation is graciously supporting the participation of six Philadelphia-area students and film professionals. The award will cover the registration fee (which includes room, board, and all special events throughout the week) and all travel costs in getting to Colgate University. Fellows are required to write a final report on their experience following the Seminar.
Complete Fellowship program information and application procedures are available at the Flaherty website
About the 2010 Robert Flaherty Film Seminar – “WORK”
Work consumes our daily lives – as a means of survival, a badge of identity, and a lifelong source of joy or sorrow. Bringing together a wide range of films and videos, “WORK,” the 2010 Robert Flaherty Film Seminar, will examine the ways in which artists depict and explore the daily rituals and larger implications of work as well as the changing nature of work and the workplace. In keeping with the fundamental ubiquity of work in our lives, the subject will be considered from a multitude of angles: economic, social, cultural, political, technological, psychological, and philosophical. Guest programmer Dennis Lim will select films which provide a panoramic survey of work (and the absence of work), from the history of labor strife to the rise of global capitalism, from child laborers in Mexico to the abandoned working class of post-industrial societies in America and China.
The Robert Flaherty Film Seminar is named after Robert Flaherty (1884-1951), who is considered by many to be the father of the American documentary. Flaherty’s groundbreaking documentary of Eskimo life, Nanook of the North is among the most noted films of the silent era. He was also the creator of such classic poetic films as Moana, Man of Aran, and Louisiana Story. The Seminar began in 1955—before the era of film schools—when Flaherty’s widow, Frances, convened a group of filmmakers, critics, curators, musicians, and other film enthusiasts at the Flaherty farm in Vermont. For more than fifty years the Flaherty Seminar has been firmly established as a one-of-a-kind institution that seeks to encourage filmmakers and other artists to explore the potential of the moving image. The films of such directors as Robert Drew, Louis Malle, the Maysles brothers, Mira Nair, D.A. Pennebaker, Satyajit Ray, and Robert M. Young were shown at the Seminar before they were known generally in the American film community. New cinematic techniques and approaches first presented and debated at the Seminar have routinely made their way into mainstream American film.
For more information on The Robert Flaherty Film Seminar please visit flahertyseminar.org.
