9/4/2024

Image courtesy of the Thai Film Archive

CREAM is pleased to announce that Prof. May Adadol Ingawanij and CREAM associate Dr. Julian Ross are programmers for the 69th Flaherty Film Seminar, To Commune. To celebrate our partnership with this legendary non-fiction cinema event, and to mark the launch of our MA Global Contemporary Art, MA Art and Emerging Technologies, and MA Expanded Photography, we are accepting applications for two CREAM Flaherty International Fellowships.  

This year’s Flaherty Film Seminar will take place in Asia for the first time in its history. It will be hosted at the Thai Film Archive in Salaya near Bangkok. Fellows are required to attend in person from Wednesday, June 26 through to Tuesday, July 2, 2024.  

To be eligible for the CREAM Flaherty International Fellowships, you must be an early career/emerging practitioner who qualifies for the Flaherty Film Seminar’s non-US/Canada based registrations rates. Please see here for information about the registration rates, and here for essential information about Seminar participation. Each Fellowship will cover the costs of registration, accommodation, meals, and a travel stipend of up to 500 USD to offset travel costs.  

Prof. Ingawanij and Dr. Ross’s curatorial theme To Commune approaches non-fiction cinema as that which brings together bodies, minds and spirits across different spaces, worlds and temporalities. In their proposition, to commune is to communicate with mystical, animistic, and ritualistic capacities. Beyond affirming commonality, to commune is to connect with others and to be in touch with the unknowable. This proposition turns to the fundamental value of cinema as an encounter with beings and worlds very different from our own. 

The annual Flaherty Film Seminar is one of the most significant convenings around non-fiction cinema in the world. Each year filmmakers, scholars, students, curators, critics, archivists, and cinephiles gather for an immersive, week-long program of film screenings, in-depth discussions, artist talks, installations, and/or performances around a theme. The Flaherty occupies a unique space within the non-fiction film ecosystem, one where artists and audiences are asked to confront the core of the creative process itself – independent of both social agenda and industry trends.  

Image courtesy of the Thai Film Archive

To apply, please complete this application form. The process should take around 30 minutes. The application form has three sections with questions about your background, your work, and your relationship with this year’s Seminar theme. To ensure your application is properly received, you must submit the form by the deadline of Tuesday, April 30, 2024 (by midnight BST).