Podcast interview with Renee Zhan
(UPDATE 25/03/2023 – Soft Animals is now available to watch online in full)
Joining us for the latest episode of our Skwigly podcast series Intimate Animation is recent Blinkink signee and Harvard University/National Film and Television School graduate Renee Zhan.
Hailing from Houston, Texas and presently based in London, Renee’s notable contributions to animation go back to her studies at Harvard under the tutelage of Ruth Lingford where she produced the films Pidge and Hold Me (Ca Caw Ca Caw). A subsequent travelling fellowship led to the completion of her film Reneepoptosis, described by the director as “a bunch of Renees who go on a quest to find God, who’s also me”, which screened internationally and picked up the Jury Prize for Animated Short at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.
Renee continued her journey at the UK’s National Film & Television School, with her mixed-media graduation film O Black Hole selected for major events including the Chicago Film Festival and the London Short Film Festival while her latest, Soft Animals, is presently screening as part of this year’s edition of the Encounters Film Festival having already been selected for Annecy, TIFF, Edinburgh and Doc Leipzig.
The mixed-media offering sees Renee’s directorial inclination to explore “issues of the body, nature, and sexuality – all things beautiful, ugly, and squishy” at perhaps its most concentrated, presenting a densely-packed three minutes of fraught emotions, tensions and lustful urges.
An ostensibly straightforward scenario of two former lovers happening upon one another by chance and doing their best to maintain a cordial dialogue quickly gives way to their still-raw recollections of the passion they once felt for each other. Polite small-talk is juxtaposed against inner thoughts manifested as a dance of almost baleful, libidinous desire conveyed through manic charcoal strokes, brutally animalistic character performance and globular, flesh-toned expulsions of paint evocative of Lucien Freud and Francis Bacon. As of last month Renee has joined Blinkink‘s esteemed talent roster following her involvement in Progress, the studio’s episode of Adult Swim’s Off The Air.
Renee Zhan (image via BlinkInk)
Also discussed in this episode: Encounters highlights including Animated Encounters Grand Prix winner Farce (dir. Robin Jensen), Best of British Animation Award winner Eating in the Dark (Dir. Inari Sirola), Annah la Javanaise (dir. Fatimah Tobing Rony), Self Scratch (dir. Chenghua Yang), Night of the Living Dread (dir. Ida Melum), Trona Pinnacles (dir. Mathilde Parquet), Breaking Bread (dir. Yuan Li Elizabeth Xu), Jeijay (dir. Petra Stipetic/Maren Wiese), Günter Falls In Love (dir. Josephine Lohoar Self), Love is Just a Death Away (dir. Bára Anna Stejskalová), Sweet Nothing (dir. Joana Fischer/Marie Kenov), Lolos (dir. Marie Valade) and Granny’s Sexual Life (dir. Urška Djukić) plus recent work from Henriette Reitz, Christa Jarrold and Future Power Station.
Stream this episode below or direct download:
Presented by Ben Mitchell and Laura-Beth Cowley
Interview conducted by Laura-Beth Cowley
Produced and edited by Ben Mitchell
Encounters passholders can see Soft Animals as part of the Human Nature and Late Lounge programmes until the end of the month
See more of Renee’s work at reneezhan.com and blinkink.co.uk