International Film Seminars: A Work in Progress
Origins
The principal activity of IFS is the annual Robert Flaherty Film Seminar. Flaherty (1884-1951) was the creator of such classic poetic films as Nanook of the North, Moana, Man of Aran, and Louisiana Story. The seminars began in 1955 - before the era of film schools - when Flaherty's widow, Frances, and brother, David, convened a group of filmmakers, critics, curators, musicians, and other film enthusiasts at the Flaherty farm in Vermont.
"I remembered that he [Robert Flaherty] had always said that the motion picture was still an unknown continent, that no one had yet scratched the surface of its potentialities, that even his own best loved films were only sketches, first studies for the great films of the future that might be made by the young of the future. It seemed to me that his name and spirit can best be perpetuated - can only be perpetuated as he would wish it - by an institution whose prime purpose is to help new talent to explore further and further into the possibilities of a medium so immense and so unknown."
- Frances Hubbard Flaherty, founder of the Robert Flaherty Seminar
In 1960, five years after its informal beginnings, IFS was incorporated to run the Flaherty seminars on an ongoing basis and to manage the distribution of some of the Flaherty film properties (Nanook of the North, Louisiana Story Study Film). According to its original articles of association, the corporation's mission was to "establish, supply, promote, conduct, operate and offer public seminars, educational programs, and instructions in the field of cinema education and the film medium in the United States and in foreign countries, including particularly distressed and newly organized areas of the world." A Board of Trustees - comprised primarily of individuals from the independent film/video world, including filmmakers, educators, and curators - was set up to govern the organization.
Thus from those informal and intimate gatherings, propelled by close friends and associates of the family, the Flaherty seminars have evolved into an essential rite of passage for filmmakers and others committed to independent media, in a setting where neophytes and seasoned professionals can participate equally in a celebration of the art of film and video.The Flaherty seminars traditionally take place in a summer-retreat environment, usually a school or college campus, where 75-120 participants - including filmmakers, scholars, critics, librarians, and programmers - gather to experience an intensive, week-long immersion in film and video screenings, followed by impassioned discussions with the makers.
Over the years, seminar guests have included such documentary luminaries as Emile de Antonio, Joris Ivens, Richard Leacock, Albert and David Maysles, D. A. Pennebaker, Ralph Steiner, George Stoney, and Frederick Wiseman; internationally renowned feature film directors, including Dusan Makavejev, Louis Malle, Chris Marker, Marcel Ophuls, Jean Rouch, Satyajit Ray, Ousmane Sembene, Agnes Varda, and Alain Tanner; feminist filmmakers like Liane Brandon, Joyce Chopra, Cinda Firestone, Jill Godmilow, Barbara Kopple, Julia Reichert, and Amalie Rothschild; media makers of color, including Madeline Anderson, Carroll Parrott Blue, St. Clair Bourne, Christine Choy, Julie Dash, Loni Ding, William Greaves, Henry Hampton, Mako Idemitsu, Phillip Mallory Jones, Mani Kaul, William Miles, Trinh T. Minh-Ha, Mira Nair, Sam Pollard, Lourdes Portillo, Marlon Riggs, Go Takamine, and Lise Yasui; avant garde/experimental media artists such as Bruce Baillie, Robert Breer, Bruce Conner, Ken Jacobs, Jonas Mekas, David Rimmer, Michael Snow, Edin Velez, and Bill Viola. A complete list of Flaherty seminar guests and participants, in fact, would read like a Who's Who of international independent cinema and video.
But like most media arts organizations, IFS has been perennially underfunded and understaffed. For the first few years, it relied solely on the volunteer efforts of its board members, later supported by the dedicated efforts of various part-time administrators. The seminars are programmed each year by different individuals- primarily curators or academics- who bring their personal/professional experience and cinematic predilections to bear on the selection of works presented at the seminar. The result of these rotating curatorships has been an extraordinarily rich and diverse array of productions featured over the seminar's forty-five-year history.
The Flaherty Experience
The Flaherty seminars offer a unique experience: an opportunity to spend a week taking in a stimulating variety of productions - old and new, covering all genres and subjects - in a relaxed setting, free from the distractions of day-to-day commitments, and the opportunity to discuss the works in depth with the makers and with other knowledgeable film/video aficionados.
"The Flaherty Seminar has got to be the toughest, most valuable, most stimulating arena in which a filmmaker can present his/her work. The audience feedback and challenging questions force the exhibiting filmmaker to reexamine not only the sources and goals of his/her work, but those of his/her art. If one is lucky enough to exhibit one's work, while putting ego and defense in cold storage (at least during the seminar), one will emerge from it with a treasure trove of helpful hints, insights, and much durable and invaluable commentary on one's work."
- William Greaves, director
The focus of the seminar is on ideas and the creative process rather than on financial or technical concerns. Unlike a film festival, the screening schedule is not announced in advance. Participants are expected to attend all screenings and discussion sessions. The rationale for this procedure is to encourage an openness to the experience so that participants can come to the screenings without preconceptions. It gives all participants a common basis for engaging in the dialogue that builds throughout the week. It also gives the programmer flexibility to change the schedule as the week progresses to accommodate the dynamics of the discussions as issues and ideas surface. Sharing screenings, discussions, and meals as a single group builds a sense of community.
"...community and communication. The other element is that the seminar relocates film and video out of their other contexts. It values the work, and lets you encounter it as a social and personal experience, it changes so you don't think about the work commercially, but rather about its other uses. The comparison is with your life and other kinds of work, and makes you think why film and video can be bearers of these experiences: regenerating, opening ideas. It's a social experience. Smart, passionate people attend so you're always pushed to find a new language to talk about film and video."
- Barbara Abrash, associate director, The Center for Media, Culture and History, New York University; former IFS Trustee
IFS files are replete with testimonials from participants who found the seminar to be a watershed experience in their lives. The Flaherty seminar has been an incubator for friendships, creative breakthroughs, professional collaborations, mind-expanding insights, and personal growth.
"My own first Flaherty was in 1988. It was, looking back, an unprecedented, seminal experience! Every idea I'd previously held dear about the media was assaulted, and began to crumble. What emerged in the wake of my own ideological rubble was a new vision of what was possible in my work, a new way of articulating and representing both my private and social realities. Without qualification I can say Tongues Untied and Affirmations - my experimental documentaries on black gay identity - would not have happened the way they did without the experience of Flaherty. Nearly all that has been heralded as virtuous in these works can be attributed to Flaherty. And for this the Seminar for me will always be a profound experience, intensely liberating, and precious."
- Marlon Riggs, filmmaker
Midlife Crisis
The Flaherty experience is often likened to that of a family, a sometimes dysfunctional family: you sleep under the same roof, share bathrooms, take meals together, view films together, participate in post-screening discussions together, and drink together late at night. As diverse personalities, egos, and cultures come into contact in this circumscribed environment, a certain amount of friction is inevitable. Expectations are unsettled, preconceptions challenged, perceptions opened to new ways of seeing and interpreting. And, as in families, sometimes this closeness and the differing points of view lead to heated arguments and hurt feelings.
From the mid-1980s through the mid-1990s, the IFS Trustees and the Flaherty seminar were caught up in these family feuds and in the difficult issues that reflected the culture at large. Many participants had always sensed a certain hierarchic rift between the "old Flaherty hands" - those who had known Robert and Frances and/or who had attended many earlier seminars - and younger newcomers attending their first seminar. Usually this meeting of minds was a positive experience in which newcomers to the field could meet and talk as equals with pioneers and accomplished professionals in an informal and supportive environment.Sometimes, however, the experience was a difficult one.
"Power, race, class, sex, and gender issues continue raging here. And I am rarely satisfied with the results. . . . Always it's a flawed event - the bungling, the mistakes, the missed opportunities, the aims ever so slightly off the mark - that frustrates me enormously.
"But here, however awkwardly, people do make more of an effort to be close to real with things as they surface. And in this strangely incubated environment, as the group views and discusses film and video for an entire week, something remarkable does sometimes happen. A living quality emerges. . . . I still can't describe why, but Flaherty is special.
- Carroll Parrott Blue, documentary filmmaker and associate professor, San Diego State University; former IFS Trustee
The "culture wars" erupting in the broader society also affected the Flaherty culture: the organization and the seminars became increasingly divisive and divided into camps over issues of diversity, representation, access. Similar midlife "growing pains" have been observed in other organizations with a long history, as the founders who shaped the organization hand the torch to the next generation.
"Long before it was fashionable to be multicultural and sensitive to the Other, Flaherty programmers sought to find and promote the underrepresented in the film world. Frances herself was an early promoter of Satyajit Ray. In 1978 the Arden House seminar was devoted to the underrepresented on public television and had programmers from the African-American, Native American, Hispanic and working-class Euro-American communities with James Blue as Master of Ceremonies. Possibly because of the early and continued concern with issues of gender, class, and culture, the seminars and the IFS Trustees meetings have often been a battleground for the politically pious to vent their anger. "
- Jay Ruby, professor of anthropology, Temple University; former IFS Trustee
These late 1980s sociopolitical differences were exacerbated by the economic climate of the time, with its cutbacks in government funding and increased competition for scarce resources. Seminar attendance fell off, funders and earlier IFS supporters lost interest, and the seminars began to run deficits. At one point, the Trustees seriously considered the possibility of shutting down the organization altogether.
A Fresh Start
How did IFS pull itself back from the brink? First of all, the Flaherty Seminar had developed a deeply committed and loyal constituency over the years; its intense, in-depth experience offered something quite different from film festivals and courses. A number of the Trustees (both current and former members) felt strongly that the seminar still had a vital role to play and that the IFS mission, dedicated to the proposition that independent media can illuminate the human spirit, was worth preserving. They contributed their time and in-kind resources to keep IFS going. One former Trustee even provided rent-free office space for several years. Under the leadership of then president Juan Mandelbaum, IFS Trustees sought ways to strengthen and renew the organization.
"At a[n early 1990s] meeting of the IFS Board of Trustees . . . a consultant for IFS reported on her conversations with numerous Flaherty alumni and all independently of each other told her the same thing. Their attendance at Flaherty had profoundly affected their lives both personally and professionally. I was gratified to hear this because then I realized I was not alone and that my continued faith in the remarkable power of the seminar was well grounded."
- Lucy Kostelanetz, independent documentary film/video maker; IFS Trustee
The Trustees realized that it would be necessary to redefine IFS and its activities in light of current funding realities and the changing cultural scene. At several points during this transitional period, from the late 1980s to the early 1990s, the board brought in consultants to facilitate discussions and to help with strategic planning. It took several years, however, and several changes of leadership for some of their recommendations to be initiated.
An opportunity presented itself at a critical moment in 1996 when a family foundation offered a grant to produce a Flaherty seminar in Israel. After much debate among the Trustees - some of whom objected to the proposed venue and source of funding - it was eventually decided to accept the grant. IFS had already produced a successful Flaherty seminar featuring Soviet and American productions in Riga, Latvia, in 1990, and so had some experience in working with overseas hosts/collaborators. The Israel seminar took place in Galilee in 1998, bringing together U. S. and Middle Eastern filmmakers; the event was well received by the both participants and hosts.
This was the beginning of a turnaround for IFS; the seminar grant gave IFS a chance to regroup and stabilize its operations. Somi Roy - an independent curator, former Flaherty Seminar programmer, and IFS Trustee with extensive international contacts - had been hired as executive director in 1998. He worked closely with board members to develop new program initiatives and to conceptualize an approach to fundraising.
"Watching great, provocative work - most produced under the direst of circumstances - reminded me why it was worth making work at all. I re-experienced the excitement one feels in a genuinely nurturing environment where learning is valued for learning's sake and where the only commodity traded is ideas. I walked out of that Flaherty with a renewed sense of purpose."
- Lise Yasui, independent producer and former IFS Trustee
Impact and Visibility
IFS had long struggled with the challenge of maintaining a year-round office and staff in order to produce a one-week annual event. The Trustees needed to find ways to keep the week-long Flaherty seminar and develop other, year-round activities to raise the profile of the organization. Seminar attendance is limited to no more than 120 in order to preserve its unique character of shared group experiences. The Flaherty Seminar's impact over the years, however, has far exceeded its numbers; it is the pebble in the pond whose ever-widening concentric circles have touched thousands of filmmakers, programmers, educators, distributors, and others. Many of today's established television or feature film directors/producers, for instance, participated in Flaherty seminars early in their careers, including Martha Coolidge, Nell Cox, John Korty, Stan Lathan, Claudia Weill, Peter Werner, and Tom Werner. Flaherty "alumni" have influenced the development of the independent media field and affected the course of cinema education as insights gleaned from seminar participation were incorporated into new films, courses, and exhibitions.
"1975: D.A. Pennebaker insulted my work. He had justification but it shook me up. After 1975 I tried to eliminate narration from our documentaries. It took a while to succeed but we finally did. When we did this in our news reports on NBC it was revolutionary."
- Jon Alpert, Downtown Community Television
"As a result of that meeting [at Flaherty] Kristina Nordstrom was able to get the First International Festival of Women's Films off the ground and a bunch of us [women from the Seminar] became members of the screening committee. . . . I met Julia [Reichert] and Jim [Klein] at the 1971 Seminar and so New Day Films was born there, too."
- Amalie R. Rothschild, filmmaker and photographer
But although this impact was very real, it was difficult to quantify, and funders like to see higher attendance figures; IFS needed to develop strategies to raise its visibility and increase its outreach statistics.One way of extending the impact of the Flaherty Seminar was to initiate a post-event screenings of selected seminar films, introduced by the makers and presented in collaboration with the Museum of Modern Art. Initiated in 1998 by Somi Roy, this ongoing activity has significantly increased audience statistics and garnered press coverage for the seminar.
Other projects currently in development include finding ways to make the Flaherty archival materials more accessible to scholars; releasing an HDTV version of Nanook of the North; exploring the feasibility of a digital-media seminar; and building a Web site. To further emphasize the organization's major activities and build "brand recognition," the IFS logo was revised to incorporate the Nanook silhouette and announce "The Robert Flaherty Film Seminar."
The Leo Connection
IFS manages the Leo Dratfield endowment and administers the annual Leo Awards, another program that reaches beyond the seminar proper. The Dratfield endowment and awards honor the memory of Leo Dratfield (1918-1986), a film distributor and former IFS Trustee who was responsible for building an outstanding collection of international shorts and documentaries and who encouraged and supported independent filmmakers. The Leo Awards honor individuals who have made a significant contribution to the independent media field; one award is for a filmmaker/media artist and one is for a presenter (curator, librarian, distributor). These awards are now presented at the Anthology Film Archives annual preservation dinner rather than at the Flaherty Seminar, thus reaching a much larger audience of influential media supporters.
Somi Roy and the IFS Trustees also have instituted a Leo Dratfield Fellowship lecture: an internationally acclaimed filmmaker is invited first to attend the Flaherty Seminar and then to give a lecture in New York. The first Dratfield Fellowship lecturer was Richard Leacock in 1999. This year's fellow is Argentine filmmaker Edgardo Cozarinsky. The post-seminar lecture is another activity that provides greater visibility and expanded audiences for IFS.
The organization also has begun to host a series of weekend "Leo" brunches in collaboration with other New York media events and festivals, carrying on a tradition begun by Dratfield, who would regularly convene informal "networking" brunches in his home. These are occasions for visiting filmmakers to meet members of the New York film community - and they promote good public relations for IFS.
Going Regional and International
During the fiscal crisis, the Flaherty seminar was cancelled in 1997 and replaced with a series of "mini-seminars": three in the New York City area at the City College of New York (CCNY), the College of Staten Island, and Sony Music in Manhattan; one at Ithaca College in Ithaca, New York; and one at the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio. The Wexner seminar, curated by Bill Horrigan, director of the museum's media program, focused on "Gender Dichotomies and Social Spectacles." Pearl Bowser and Tee Collins organized a session on "Animated Images: An Exploration of Multicultural Talents," hosted by Sony Music. At Ithaca College, Patricia Zimmerman and Michelle Materre presented a seminar on "Explorations in Memory and Modernity." Filmmaker Ayoka Chenzira organized a program on "Documenting the Community" at CCNY. And at the College of Staten Island, Tami Gold and Alonzo Speight curated "Passin' It On: The Documentary Across Generations."
Of these programs, the regional seminars in Ohio and upstate New York drew the largest audiences. Overall, the "Flaherty on the Road" mini-seminars generated increased attendance figures for IFS and helped to build partnerships. The regional collaborations also inspired other partnerships. The Duke University Program in Film and Video and Center for International Studies subsequently proposed a Flaherty seminar on their campus; they hosted and coproduced the 1999 Flaherty Seminar. More regional seminars are now being planned.
In the attempt to reinvent itself and extend its reach, another challenge IFS is undertaking is the expansion of the organization's international character. The seminar always has had international guests; now IFS is exploring more possibilities for overseas seminars, building on the success of the 1998 Israel experience and the 1990 seminar it held in Riga. IFS has now developed a model of collaboration to present to potential regional or international partners that includes, first of all, inviting a representative to attend a traditional Flaherty seminar. Collaborative projects must generate revenue, either cash contributions or substantial in-kind support. The challenge here is to focus on the rationale of the Flaherty seminars, their unique character and mission, while making the regional or international seminars relevant to their locale by working closely with the local partner organizations.
Growing the Dollars: Endowments/Funding
Learning to become more fiscally savvy has been another goal of the organization's renewed mission. IFS earns interest from several endowment funds established to honor the memory of former Trustees (Paul Ronder, Sol Worth, Barbara and Willard Van Dyke, as well as the Dratfield fund) and to provide scholarships for seminar participants. These endowments were created with contributions from Flaherty alumni. Each year, IFS sends a mailing to all those who have attended the Flaherty Seminar, inviting them to contribute to the scholarship funds. Several years ago, IFS began investing its endowments in mutual funds (previously they had been left in bank savings accounts). Consequently, some of these endowments have almost doubled in value.
For more than fifteen years, the Flaherty Seminar has taken place in New York State and has received funding from the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA). Discussions between IFS and NYSCA staff have resulted in pledges of multi-year grant support, which has enabled the organization to develop more realistic long-range plans. IFS is now approaching other foundations for multi-year support. The Israel project suggested other, previously untapped, avenues of funding for IFS. If Jewish philanthropies would support an Israel seminar, for instance, perhaps other foundations would support seminars that focus on regions or topics that relate to their guidelines. Board and staff are now exploring these possibilities.
"Old Hands, New Projects": Governance/Management
Changes also have been made to the Board of Trustees. The previous five-year term of office has been reduced to a three-year commitment, with the possibility of re-election for an additional term. The number of Trustees has been increased to eighteen individuals who have a firm commitment to IFS and to the independent media field, and who also represent a spectrum of geographic, ethnic, age, and gender perspectives. In order to qualify for a position on the Board, candidates must have attended at least one Flaherty seminar. In restructuring for the future, the new leadership has brought back some former Trustees to facilitate the ongoing transition as IFS remakes itself into a more inclusive, year-round, truly international organization. According to Somi Roy, the motto was "old hands, new projects." Board members are now more actively involved, working in committees under the leadership of an executive committee headed by current president Lucy Kostelanetz.
For the first time in its history, IFS has a full-time executive director and a year-round assistant, a condition that certainly will contribute to the stabilization of the organization. Somi Roy works closely and collaboratively with the Trustees, especially the executive committee, to keep the organization on track and within budget. They make extensive use of e-mail, which has greatly facilitated communication with a geographically dispersed board. IFS also has instituted an annual Board retreat for planning.
Lessons Learned
Conversations with staff and with some present and former Trustees elicited the following general observations, applicable to all non-profit organizations:
+ Be true to your mission. An organization like IFS/Flaherty, founded on humanistic principles, must be inclusive. It must find ways to be true to its mission while adapting to changing times, technologies, and concerns.
+ When problems arise, the Board must deal with them promptly. If you need to make a break, make it quickly and cleanly. Try to step back and see if the problems are a reflection of the broader society, or are endemic to the organization; look at the context.
+ The organization must determine exactly what Board members can contribute (time, money, contacts, etc.) and must get them involved. Regular communication with Board members and constituents is essential.
+ Review your bylaws periodically and make necessary changes to keep the organization functioning effectively.
+ An organization needs at least one major income-generating project to stay afloat, such as the Flaherty Seminar for IFS.
A Work in Progress
IFS is not out of the woods yet, but the situation has stabilized. Seminar attendance is up; funders are once again taking an interest and showing renewed confidence in the organization; board members and executive director Somi Roy are infusing the organization with fresh energy and dedication. Finances are back on track: investments are yielding more income, grant support has increased. At age forty, IFS is finally evolving from a once-a-year activity, run by volunteers and part-timers, to a professionally managed organization with a roster of year-round initiatives. According to current IFS president Lucy Kostelanetz, this professionalization of staff and operations is a top priority; it will make it possible to develop the new activities and to expand international outreach. IFS will also become more involved with new technologies, building a Web site and incorporating new media into the Flaherty seminars.
IFS is now facing another major challenge: the imminent need to find new office space in a New York real-estate climate that is not friendly to arts organizations. But with all hands pulling together, the organization will undoubtedly overcome this latest hurdle. The Flaherty "family" has worked through its midlife crisis and is now on the path to recovery and growth. Granted, it's a rocky, uphill path; but IFS is once again moving forward and continuing to provide valuable services to the independent media field.
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Nadine Covert is a consultant and a former Trustee and Treasurer of IFS (1975-1980). She has attended a number of Flaherty Seminars and was co-programmer of the 1972 seminar.
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