Dir. **Hammad Khan 2016, Pakistan / UK, 80 min
Plus director Q&A, hosted by film critic & journalist Kaleem Aftab**

“THE ANIMA STATE MANIFESTO:
The condition of the mind and the condition of society are interconnected.
Our dreams are projections of trauma and desire.
Women must break free from archetypes formed by the male gaze.
Violence begets violence, which leads to apathy.
In a fundamentalist society, artistic provocation is a fundamental right.
The artist is pure when the artist is unrecognisable.
The camera is a weapon of intrusion. It has no ‘auto’ setting to liberate its subject.
Indulgence in nostalgia is an act of masturbation.
The fourth wall is an ancient veil that should conceal and reveal.
God is in the eye of the beholder. Beauty is the one truth.
Every country is a state of mind. Therefore, there is no Pakistan.”

The ****most important film to come out of Pakistan in decades; a provocative, allegorical tragicomic metaphor for the multitude of ‘anonymous’ threats in contemporary Pakistan and the national apathy towards the rot in society. An uncomfortable, in-your-face examination of Pakistan, from its violence to its apathy to its refusal to recognize its moral corruption, taking on the media, politics, religion and even sports, in a way that scrutinizes and implicates everyone, including the viewer.

As the 70th anniversary celebrations of Pakistan’s independence from British India draw to a close, Anima State interrogates the very notion of freedom, sovereignty and security for the country and its inhabitants.

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