Theo Anthony is an American

film director A film director or filmmaker is a person who controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay (or script) while guiding the film crew and actors in the fulfillment of that Goal, vision. The director has a key role ...

editor Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, or cinematic material used by a person or an entity to convey a message or information. The editing process can involve correction, condensation, organization, a ...

, and

cinematographer The cinematographer or director of photography (sometimes shortened to DP or DOP) is the person responsible for the recording of a film, television production, music video or other live-action piece. The cinematographer is the chief of the camera ...

from

Baltimore Baltimore is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. With a population of 585,708 at the 2020 census and estimated at 568,271 in 2024, it is the 30th-most populous U.S. city. The Baltimore metropolitan area is the 20th-large ...

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It borders the states of Virginia to its south, West Virginia to its west, Pennsylvania to its north, and Delaware to its east ...

known for his documentary films, including 2016's '' Rat Film''. Anthony's work draws inspiration from the experimental film essays of directors such as

Harun Farocki Harun Farocki (9 January 1944 – 30 July 2014) was a German filmmaker, author, and lecturer in film. Early life and education Farocki was born as Harun El Usman FaroqhiMargalit Fox (3 August 2014)''New York Times''. in Neutitschein, which is n ...

and

Chris Marker Chris Marker (; 29 July 1921 – 29 July 2012) (born ''Christian-François Bouche-Villeneuve'') was a French writer, photographer, documentary film director, multimedia artist and Essay#Film, film essayist. His best known films are ''La Jetée' ...

Life and career

Anthony grew up in

, and studied cinema theory and creative writing at

Oberlin College Oberlin College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Oberlin, Ohio, United States. Founded in 1833, it is the oldest Mixed-sex education, coeducational lib ...

. In 2014, he attended

Werner Herzog Werner Herzog (; né Stipetić; born 5 September 1942) is a German filmmaker, actor, opera director, and author. Regarded as a pioneer of New German Cinema, his films often feature ambitious protagonists with impossible dreams, people with unusu ...

's Rogue Film School, and released his breakthrough short film ''Chop My Money''. ''Chop My Money'', Anthony's first short to play film festivals, was shot in the Eastern Congo, featured music by

Dirty Beaches Alex Zhang Hungtai (born September 4, 1980) is a Taiwanese-born Canadian musician and actor. In addition to his given name, he makes music under the names Last Lizard and Dirty Beaches. Zhang was born in Taipei. He released several EPs and thre ...

, and premiered at the

Toronto International Film Festival The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the most prestigious and largest publicly attended film festivals in the world. Founded in 1976, the festival takes place every year in early September. The organi ...

before being named a Vimeo Staff Pick and being featured by ''The Atlantic.'' In 2015, Anthony was named one of the "25 New Faces of Independent Film" by ''

Filmmaker Magazine ''Filmmaker'' is a quarterly publication magazine covering issues relating to independent film. The magazine was founded in 1992 by Karol Martesko-Fenster, Scott Macaulay and Holly Willis. The magazine is now published by the IFP (Independent Fil ...

'', and completed the short film ''Peace in the Absence of War'', which premiered at the 2016

International Film Festival Rotterdam International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) is an annual film festival held at the end of January in various locations in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, focused on independent and experimental films. The inaugural festival took place in June 1972, ...

and immersed the viewer in the

2015 Baltimore protests On April 12, 2015, Baltimore Police Department officers arrested Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old African American resident of Baltimore, Maryland. Gray's neck and spine were injured while he was in a police vehicle and he went into a coma. On Ap ...

following the police killing of Freddie Grey. Anthony made his feature-film debut in 2016 with '' Rat Film'', which had its world premiere at the 2016

Locarno Film Festival The Locarno International Film Festival is a major international film festival, held annually in Locarno, Switzerland. Founded in 1946, the festival screens films in various competitive and non-competitive sections, including feature-length narr ...

and its U.S. premiere at the 2017

True/False Film Festival True/False Film Fest is an annual documentary film festival that takes place in Columbia, Missouri. The Fest occurs on the first weekend in March (sometimes beginning in late February), with films being shown from Thursday evening to Sunday nigh ...

. ''Rat Film'' used the issue of rat infestation in Baltimore as a window into a non-fiction exploration of the city's history of racial segregation and

redlining Redlining is a Discrimination, discriminatory practice in which financial services are withheld from neighborhoods that have significant numbers of Race (human categorization), racial and Ethnic group, ethnic minorities. Redlining has been mos ...

and persistent systemic issues of inequality. The film went on to screen at festivals such as the 2017

, the 2017 South by Southwest Film Conference & Festival, and the 2018

Copenhagen International Documentary Festival CPH:DOX, also known as Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival, is a Danish film festival focused on documentary films, held annually in Copenhagen, Denmark. Since 2008 it has been run by Copenhagen Film Festivals, which also organize ...

, and had its television premiere as part of the

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

series

Independent Lens ''Independent Lens'' is a weekly television series airing on PBS featuring documentary films made by independent filmmakers. Past seasons of ''Independent Lens'' were hosted by Angela Bassett, Don Cheadle, Susan Sarandon, Edie Falco, Terrenc ...

on February 26, 2018. Anthony was nominated for Outstanding Achievement in a Debut Feature Film and ''Rat Film'' composer

Dan Deacon Daniel Deacon (born August 28, 1981) is an American composer and electronic musician based in Baltimore, Baltimore, Maryland. Deacon is renowned for his live shows, where large-scale audience participation and interaction is often a major elemen ...

was nominated for Outstanding Achievement in Original Music Score at the 2018

Cinema Eye Honors The Cinema Eye Honors are awards recognizing excellence in nonfiction or documentary filmmaking and include awards for the disciplines of directing, producing, cinematography and editing. The awards are presented each January in New York and have b ...

. “Rat Film” was also nominated for Best Documentary and the Audience Award at the 2017

Gotham Awards The Gotham Awards () are American film awards, presented annually to the makers of independent films at a ceremony in New York City, the city first nicknamed "Gotham" by native son Washington Irving, in an issue of ''Salmagundi'', published on ...

. Anthony's next film, the

ESPN ESPN (an initialism of their original name, which was the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by the Walt Disney Company (80% and operational control) and Hearst Commu ...

30 for 30 ''30 for 30'' is the title for a series of documentary films airing on ESPN, its sister networks, and online highlighting interesting people and events in sports history. This includes four "volumes" of 30 episodes each, a 13-episode series und ...

documentary ''Subject to Review'', premiered at the 2019

New York Film Festival The New York Film Festival (NYFF) is a film festival held every fall in New York City, presented by Film at Lincoln Center. Founded in 1963 by Richard Roud and Amos Vogel with the support of Lincoln Center president William Schuman, NYFF i ...

and examined the

Hawk-Eye Hawk-Eye is a computer vision system used to visually track the trajectory of a ball and display a profile of its statistically most likely path as a moving image. It is used in more than 20 major sports, including cricket, tennis, Gaelic foo ...

computer-vision system's use in officiating the sport of tennis. ''Subject to Review'' continued the ongoing collaboration between Anthony and composer Dan Deacon which began with ''Rat Film''. In 2020, it was announced that Anthony's next feature film would be entitled '' All Light, Everywhere'' and explore issues of subjective perception and fallibility in both human and technological modes of surveillance. ''All Light, Everywhere'' was selected to premiere at the 2021

Sundance Film Festival The Sundance Film Festival is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with 423,234 combined in-person and online viewership in 2023. The festival has acted ...

in its U.S. Documentary Competition slate.

Filmography

;Short Films * ''Chop My Money'' (2014) - director, writer, editor, cinematographer * ''Peace in the Absence of War'' (2015) - director, writer, editor, cinematographer * ''Subject to Review'' (2019) - director, writer, editor, cinematographer ;Feature films * '' Rat Film'' (2016) - director, writer, editor, cinematographer * '' All Light, Everywhere'' (2021) - director, writer, editor

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Anthony, Theo Artists from Baltimore Living people Film directors from Maryland Oberlin College alumni Year of birth missing (living people) Sundance Film Festival award winners