"Before the world became the world, it was an egg. Inside the egg was dark. The rat nibbled the egg and let the light in. And the world began." (From the film)
Is there a correlation between rats and working-class citizens? Premiered at last year's Locarno Film Festival, Rat Film casts light on a century of class and race issues in Baltimore by pursuing another of the city's problems, and one that's been around just as long: rats. Director Theo Anthony, born in 1989, uses disconnected images reminiscent of Herzog, and adds a narrator with a hypnotic, robotic female voice. The film inspires us to think about our dislike of rats by highlighting their parallels with human beings, deploying a series of striking facts and stunning images. A profound insight into how we justify exploitation when we decide that a creature, or a class of people, is unappealing.
2016 LOCARNO, VANCOUVER, TORINO
Theo Anthony's films have been premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, Locarno International Film Festival, Rotterdam International Film Festival, and Anthology Film Archives. In 2015, he was listed among the "25 New Faces of Independent Film" by Filmmaker Magazine.
