A focus on the work of the American Theo Anthony and a special session with works by the Pakistani Basir Mahmood are the novelties launched today by Porto/Post/Doc. Taking place between November 20th and 30th this year, the Porto festival had already announced a special programme under the theme Ideas to Postpone the End of the World. This cycle is inspired on the ideas and works of Ailton Krenak, activist and indigenous thinker who will integrate, together with programmer and curator Susana Rodrigues and director and writer João Sousa Cardoso, the international jury of the festival.

Since the premiere at Sundance of All Light, Everywhere, a powerful essay on video surveillance and the use of cameras by police forces in the USA, young filmmaker Theo Anthony has established himself as one of the most exciting names in the new American documentary. His feature film debut came in 2016 with Rat Film, a documentary about racial problems, urban planning, state influence on segregation and the living conditions of certain sections of the poorest and most racialised people in Baltimore. This was the beginning of a narrative scheme with a profoundly infectious intelligence that would become his trademark. However, it would be with the short film Subject to Review, commissioned by the ESPN sports television channel, that Anthony would establish himself as an author. The film "innocently" dedicated to the use of the "hawk's eye" system in professional Tennis matches turned out to be an electrifying parable about the limits of the perception of reality and, as such, about the limits of justice. All Light, Everywhere (2021), Chop My Money (2014), Peace In The Absence Of War (2015), Rat Film (2016) and Subject To Review (2019) will be screened in the focus that the Porto festival dedicates to him. The director will be present in Porto to present the retrospective.

Espaço de Cinema Para o Ar Entrar e Circular is the name of the special session that, for 70 minutes, will project, continuously, a selection of six works by the artist Basir Mahmood, describing a decade of his work, between video art and cinema. A proposal for a national premiere that works on the limits of the perception of reality and reveals the recurrences and obsessions of the Pakistani filmmaker. The first is the way in which the intervention of the camera alters reality, imposing staging and the discomfort of gestures. The second is his interest in the banality of certain everyday actions, which constant repetition raises to an almost iconographic dimension. On a third level the political subtext, both in the cultural clash between East and West, and in the role of farce in electoral dramaturgy or the dominant role of masculinity and the gender violence associated with it. Finally, his relationship with his country's film history, and the ruins of Lollywood (as Pakistan's film industry is called, which in the 1970s was the fourth largest in the world, and today is reduced to television by-products). Basir Mahmood was awarded the Paulo Cunha e Silva prize in 2020 and the Ammodo Tiger Short Award at this year's Rotterdam Film Festival.

Porto/Post/Doc takes place between 20 and 30 November at the Teatro Municipal do Porto - Rivoli, Passos Manuel, Coliseu Porto Ageas, Casa Comum da Reitoria da Universidade Porto and Planetário do Porto - Centro Ciência Viva. Similar to what happened in 2020, the festival will also feature an extension to online, where it will be possible to view a large part of the selected films.

More details about the programme will be revealed in the coming months.

THEO ANTHONY FOCUS

All Light, Everywhere, Theo Anthony, DOC, 2021, USA, 109'.

Chop My Money, Theo Anthony, DOC, 2014, Congo, 13'.

Peace In The Absence Of War, Theo Anthony, DOC, 2015, USA, 5'.

Rat Film, Theo Anthony, DOC, 2016, USA, 83'

Subject To Review, Theo Anthony, DOC, 2019, USA, 37'

Cinema Space For Air To Enter and Circulate

BASIR MAHMOOD

All Voices Are Mine, Basir Mahmood, DOC/EXP, 2018, Pakistan, 20'

Death, At Least Once, Basir Mahmood, DOC/EXP, 2020, 10'

Manmade, Basir Mahmood, DOC/EXP, 2010, 13'

Power Between Weak, Basir Mahmood, DOC, EXP, 2015, 4'

Sunsets, Everyday, Basir Mahmood, FIC, 2020, Italy, 15'.

Thank You For Coming, Basir Mahmood, DOC, EXP, 2013, 7'