Screening of Robert Flaherty Look Again

The winter films Sunday Series at JAC kicks off with the screening of ROBERT FLAHERTY LOOK AGAIN: The John Howard Benson Film, a new documentary by Jamestown filmmaker Rebecca Miller.

Miller’s 33-minute film revisits an project begun in 1944 by pioneering documentarian Robert Flaherty, who set out to make a portrait of the artist, calligrapher, and influential RISD faculty member John Howard Benson. Drawing from Flaherty’s previously unseen Benson footage—preserved in the RISD Archives—and from interviews Miller conducted in 1978 with figures such as Richard Leacock and Mrs. John Howard Benson, the documentary reconstructs a story long obscured by time.

Rather than treating Flaherty as an untouchable figure in cinema history, the film invites viewers to reconsider his legacy by placing him in tension with Benson’s quieter, exacting artistic world. The result is a lively, incisive study of two artists whose sensibilities collided in unexpected ways.

ROBERT FLAHERTY LOOK AGAIN offers a rare opportunity to witness archival material transformed into a potent, contemporary narrative—an invitation, as Miller puts it, “to take a look, and then look again.”

ABOUT THE FILMMAKER: Rebecca Miller is a bold multidisciplinary artist working across film, sculpture, graphic design, and writing. Her practice combines typography with sculptural aesthetics, animation, storytelling, and public communications, aiming to create curious, thoughtful experiences.

She has generated ooohs and aaahs with her video programs, broadcast work, interactive communications and graphic design. Her work is known for unusual creative solutions, aggressive editing, graphic aesthetic, and original music scores. The founder of the production company Optik Nerve, Inc. since 1995, she has produced, directed, edited, written, and designed hundreds of high-impact long and short-form works for major corporations, broadcasters, agencies and universities across the globe. She began her career in television, working for national broadcasters and the international host, Sir David Frost.

Rebecca is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, majoring in film and video, class of 1978. As a documentary filmmaker, she recently completed Robert Flaherty LOOK AGAIN: The John Howard Benson Film which is based on her original research on the filmmaker Robert Flaherty and the stonecutter, designer, and calligrapher John Howard Benson. The new film premiered in October 2025 at R.I. School of Design.

She lives in Jamestown, Rhode Island and is married to the scientist Donald R. Sadoway. Her art is represented by the Atelier Contemporary gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

To learn more please visit www.optiknerve.net and www.robertflahertylookagain.com.