Shorts by directors from around the world illuminate and contextualize the world as it is today. From Wang Bing comes Brutality Factory, the story of a building site where the ghosts of the past tell their tales. Tarrafal from Pedro Costa focuses on a 1936 concentration camp for political prisoners. Vicente Ferraz explores the struggle between globalization, culture, and environment through the eyes of a fisherman in Germano. A group traveling down the Mekong recreates a ceremony to the memory of the living, the dead, and cinema in Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Luminous People. Ayisha Abraham’s One Way unfolds in a basement as a security guard recalls his journey from Nepal to Bangalore’s Deccan Plateau. In Tombee de nuit a Shanghai, Chantal Ackerman presents the dynamic images of Shanghai, the city of cultural melting pot. Project producer Luis Correia sums it up best when he says State of the World “will be a positive contribution for a better understanding and an unusual reflection on the state of the world.”