25 Aniversario (25th Anniversary) by Rafael Tufiño Figueroa, 1974. Image commemorating the 25th anniversary of DIVEDCO.
In the summer of 1961, the Flaherty Film Seminar took a bold step beyond the continental United States. That year’s seventh edition, curated by Dorothy Olson, was held in the small mountain town of Barranquitas, Puerto Rico. It was a quietly radical gesture that brought the Seminar closer to the lived realities and creative traditions of Latin America and the Caribbean, and it remains a pivotal but often overlooked chapter in Flaherty history.
Founded in 1955 by Frances Flaherty—and named after her late husband, the pioneering documentarian Robert Flaherty—the Flaherty Film Seminar became one of the most influential international platforms for nonfiction cinema. Known for its immersive, week-long format and its rigorous programming philosophy—“the filmmaker present”—the Seminar fosters in-depth dialogue between artists, curators, and scholars from around the world. It has long been a crucible for expanding the boundaries of documentary and experimental film practice.
Held from June 23rd to July 1 at Hotel Barranquitas, the selection of Puerto Rico as the Seminar’s site reflected not only geographic expansion but also intellectual and cultural intent. At the time, Puerto Rico was home to the groundbreaking DIVEDCO (División de Educación de la Comunidad), a landmark public agency founded in the 1940s under the Department of Public Education to foster civic education through film, posters, and literature. Between 1950 and 1975, the agency produced approximately 65 short films.
Bringing together visual artists, writers, and filmmakers, DIVEDCO produced community-oriented short films on topics such as hygiene, literacy, labor, and democracy—films made with and often starring nonprofessional actors from rural areas. Its participatory and pedagogical ethos resonated deeply with the Flaherty Seminar’s own founding ideals.
American filmmakers had been involved in DIVEDCO’s work since its inception. Willard Van Dyke, who would later become Director of MoMA’s Department of Film and serve as Flaherty Board President, directed One Lucky Horse / El de los cabos blancos for DIVEDCO in 1957. The relationship between Puerto Rican and U.S. documentary traditions was already in motion—some DIVEDCO productions had circulated in U.S. documentary circles and had even screened at the Seminar by the time it arrived in Barranquitas in 1961—but the 1961 edition gave that exchange a dedicated platform.
A Puerto Rican newspaper clipping from July 1, 1961, reporting on a music performance offered to attendees of the Flaherty Film Seminar in Barranquitas.
The Seminar’s presence in Puerto Rico also took on a layered political charge. The early 1960s were a period of growing unrest and realignment across the Global South, with increased attention to questions of postcolonial identity, cultural sovereignty, and the politics of representation. Holding the Seminar in a U.S. territory—one with its own colonial history—invited both collaboration and confrontation. These complexities were not always resolved, but they were undeniably present.
The Flaherty’s relationship with Puerto Rico didn’t end in the sixties. It continued through collaborative screenings, filmmaker exchanges, and institutional memory. In 2011, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Barranquitas Seminar, the Flaherty NYC series and Cinema Tropical co-presented Francisco Serrano’s documentary Seva Lives / Seva vive at Anthology Film Archives in Manhattan, in partnership with the Puerto Rico Film Society. The event was not just commemorative—it was a reminder of the enduring legacy of that singular week in Barranquitas.
As the Flaherty Film Seminar celebrates 70 years of programming in 2025, it’s worth honoring the 1961 edition for what it was: a transformative moment of cross-cultural exchange and hemispheric thinking. Barranquitas remains a milestone—not just in the Flaherty’s timeline, but in the broader history of transnational nonfiction cinema.
