Flaherty Revisited Seminar

In late 1931 Robert Flaherty travelled to the isles of Aran in Galway

Bay, off the West coast of Ireland. Over the next two years the Ame-
rican set up base on Inis Mor, explored locations, built a laboratory

and a small studio, searched for islanders that matched his vision,
finally casting locals Maggie Dirrane as the woman and Coleman
“Tiger” King as the Man of Aran. The result, premiered internationally
in 1934, straddled the border between fiction and documentary. By
directing reality, Flaherty strove for a balance between what was real
and honest, and what looked real and honest. His working motto:
“One often has to distort a thing to catch its true spirit”
Nine decades later in 2021, an international group of documentary
filmmakers and teachers led by Robert Rombout and John Burgan
travelled to the Aran islands for a week. Less a pilgrimage on the
tracks of the mythical “father of documentary”, the primary purpose

of this Flaherty Revisited event was to investigate his working me-
thods in order to produce new approaches to creative work with film

students: in short, a laboratory on documentary-film practice. The

director of Man of Aran was not selected as an example to be imita-
ted, but rather to provide a rich and complex perspective from which

to explore the contradictions and paradoxes of film practice in the
field. In Spring 2022 the team will reunite to unveil the results of their
journey, this time in Lisbon, Portugal where Lusófona University will
host a two-and a half day public seminar on 25-27 February 2022.

Firstly, the team will present insights and discoveries on the specific

challenge of teaching documentary fieldwork at film schools. Typi-
cally as film teachers we focus on project development at the begin-
ning of the process (researching ideas, finding characters, writing a

treatment); and towards the end of the project we are frequently pre-
sent in the edit suite during post-production; but we rarely appear

on location during research and shooting. This is very different from
fiction teaching where hands-on workshops and studio exercises
with actors and student filmmakers are a common element of the
pedagogy. Logistics aside, we ask whether this rather comfortable
status quo can be challenged.
Secondly, the group will outline future plans and propose two new
projects, namely The Flaherty Think Tank and also the Island Diary
Workshop (September 2022 Gavdos, Greece)

Thirdly, they will screen two brand new films made during the inau-
gural event in Ireland: The Making of Flaherty Revisited and The Film

School Wolves. Last but not least, together with the audience, they

will revisit films by Robert Flaherty. Film practice also implies physi-
cal work in an increasingly standardised cerebral environment. For

instance how do coaches and teachers engage with students during
online sessions, far removed from the four elements? Research is

frequently interpreted by students as “google search”, whereas, ac-
cording to Werner Herzog: “The world reveals itself to those who

walk.”


Registration online: https://forms.gle/HvBmsZAfAFQyocVa7