Theo Anthony Masterclass

The Deluge: Making Images at the Edge of History

How do we create meaning with images when their power to represent feels depleted? Every day, our screens throw up scenes of unimaginable beauty and horror, faster than we can ever hope to make sense of. The territory struggles to keep up with the map, giving the image a causal power once reserved for divination and magic. Filmmaker Theo Anthony leads a masterclass exploring how cinema can reveal meaning through absence and uncertainty, turning a crisis of representation into a generative constraint. Through scenes from his own films, alongside examples ranging from AI-generated slop, J. M. W. Turner’s paintings and the ghostly landscapes of Song Dynasty scrolls, Anthony explores what happens when images shift from bearing witness to what has been towards shaping what might yet come.

Theo Anthony is a filmmaker based in upstate New York whose work blends formal experimentation with documentary inquiry. His debut feature, Rat Film, premiered at Locarno and True/False, earning Gotham and Cinema Eye nominations before its PBS broadcast on Independent Lens. His follow-up, Subject to Review (ESPN’s 30 for 30), premiered at the New York Film Festival. His most recent feature, All Light, Everywhere, won a Special Jury Award at Sundance and was released theatrically worldwide, including a screening at l’Alternativa 2021. Anthony is currently a Visiting Lecturer at Harvard University.

This masterclass ties in with the Parallel Section Theo Anthony and Zia Anger.