Cast of Shadows 

Cast of Shadows 

Sami van Ingen, Finland, 2025, 121’

 The film examines how Frances Hubbard Flaherty was the person who made all her husbands’ major films (Nanook of The North to Louisiana Story) happen and how their three daughters Barbara, Franny and Monica, Robert’s brother David, and others played crucial parts in enabling the iconic Robert Flaherty films to be completed at all. In this essay film, filmmaker Sami van Ingen shares his own family stories by using previously unseen archival material and takes the viewer on an in-depth trip to the history of the Flaherty film-making family. Cast of Shadows opens up the historical landscape of the people who contributed crucially to Robert Flaherty’s film legacy but have been sidelined by history. 

“I want to re-examine the writing of cinema history by pulling apart narratives built up over decades and repeated again and again as ‘truths’. The exclusive use of archival material leads to questions of access, privilege, and authenticity and propagates issues around responsibilities and ownership. These topics interest me as an artist, film-maker and researcher. Cast of Shadows intertwines these issues with the personal and questions conventions of representations and history writing.” – Sami van Ingen 

“Van Ingen is not interested in making a gender statement; he proposes a tribute to the creativity and persistence of these women who also contributed to the preservation and memory of a type of documentary…The most important value of Cast of Shadows is precisely in the articulation of a large amount of family archive to give it an emotional form and from the proximity of filiation… /…/ Cast of Shadows does not seek to belittle the talent of the famous filmmaker but instead aims to incorporate the women of his family in their real artistic dimension, and not as simple accompaniment.” – Mónica Delgado, Desistfilm, 31.1. 2025 

Sami van Ingen has made over 30 films, mainly dealing subtly with the act of seeing and using various strategies to manipulate found or forgotten footage. Van Ingen’s films have been screened at Edinburgh FF, Karlovy Vary, IFF Rotterdam, Oberhausen, and at institutions like the National Gallery of Art in Washington and Centre Pompidou. As well as making films, van Ingen makes performances and researches historical aspects of cinema and photography. 

Sami van Ingen will join us for a discussion after the screening.