In a statement given on occasion of his 19th Festival appearance, Gabriel Abrantes presents his works featured in the Southern Panoramas | Guest Artists show and in the Gabriel Abrantes Film Program, relating them to his artistic concerns and to the development of his production. The film Liberdade (2011), which he co-directed with Benjamin Crotty, is set in Luanda, Angola, and portrays the relationship between a young Angolan man and his Chinese girlfriend. Abrantes comments on his interest in Luanda as an emerging economic hub marginalized by the ruling powers and on its interaction with another major up-and-coming economy, China, in the form of financial flows and immigration. He recounts his transition into film as a medium due to the community-oriented character of his output, and presents the pieces featured in the Film Program, all of which are collaborative efforts with partners. He also expounds on how his artworks straddle the film and art circuits, on how subjects connected with the global South, its economic flows and power relationships are more frequent in the latter, and on how he strives to reverse the clichés found in mass culture products to pave the way for the building of new narratives.