Flaherty Seminar 2017

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?