ren scateni

posting late re: @glasgowshort last month but still thinking about the smallest metro in the world, pigeons cooing outside of the window, ice cream in the cinema, being unexpectedly sunkissed in march in glasgow, no chicken?!, hearing strangers reminiscing about holidays in sweden, the wee pouch of cadbury animals cookies i was gifted after a screening (risked my life admitting i don't like cadbury chocolate to a glaswegian dramatically upset by my statement), fighting all the battles, cutting a pistachio baklava in half because idk what if it's too sweet and then eating them all, sanitising gel as the new italian identifier. thanks for the little things and pockets of respite 🫶 (📷 credit: 3, 8, 12 Ingrid Muir / 4, 10 @gmedgln )

Announcing our first Bristol touring event - Scraps of Memory: A Sylvia Schedelbauer and Richard Fung Medley Guest curated by Ren Scateni (@whatever.ren ) This short-film programme positions the family archive as a starting point from which to illustrate complex personal histories of belonging and acceptance in diasporic contexts. Sylvia Schedelbauer’s Memories (2004) offers an incisive commentary on the unreliable and slippery nature of memory, as the filmmaker (re)constructs the family archive and questions her parents’ past to grapple with disorientating cultural coordinates. In Sea in the Blood (2000), Richard Fung weaves together two stories of love and illness. Through home movies, photos, and testimonies, the artist connects his sister’s rare blood disease with his lifelong partner’s AIDS diagnosis, placing them both against Trinidad and Tobago’s history of colonialism and independence. Notions of personal archives are complicated by historical disturbances and artistic attempts to reappropriate and interrogate cultural artefacts. In Oh, Butterfly! (2022), Schedelbauer embarks on a polyphonic critique of American imperialism via Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, blending elements of her family history. Various opera productions and film adaptations are superimposed on home videos and audio excerpts from David Cronenberg’s M. Butterfly (1993), constructing a multi-layered rumination on multiracial love and its sociopolitical implications. Fung’s Dirty Laundry (1996) similarly combines fiction with fact to postulate the hidden history of the gay Chinese diaspora in Canada. Not precisely an autobiographical account, the film’s point of departure is nonetheless a family photo (albeit fictional), hence attesting to the foundational role the personal plays in inquiries into the politics of history-making. Screening at @kit.form Thu 26 Feb 18:30 🎫 Book tickets from link in bio Presented with the support of the BFI, awarding National Lottery funding. @britishfilminstitute #nationallottery #bfi #whosehomeland

november - december 🐿️ caught up on my camera roll on the last day of the year, well done me. not exactly a fan of this 2025 but oh boi i surely started to feel lighter. don't want to quantify any achievements, nor think back about what could have happened differently. i can feel some priorities shifting, i feel myself more aligned to my beliefs, i perceive change and i'm not (that much) afraid anymore. some of you have been pivotal this year and i'll be forever grateful for your being exactly what you needed to be.

uppsala + stockholm, late october 🍂 attending @uppsalakortfilmfestival (a special, special festival in a special, special place)

september - october 👽

july - august 🦎 just a bit awkward to post summer pics on xmas eve living in the northern hemisphere

barcelona, late july 🐦‍🔥 definitely wanting to go back

may - june 🍓 never stop pushing back posting on ig and now on a quest to catch up on my camera roll before the end of the year let's go

🇵🇸 New text! “Agents of Control: Juliette Le Monnyer’s 𝘙𝘢𝘮𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘢𝘩, 𝘗𝘢𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘦, 𝘥é𝘤𝘦𝘮𝘣𝘳𝘦 2018” by Ren Scateni Juliette Le Monnyer’s 𝘙𝘢𝘮𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘢𝘩, 𝘗𝘢𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘦, 𝘥é𝘤𝘦𝘮𝘣𝘳𝘦 2018 (2025) wants us to bear witness. Within a tight ten-minute running time, this minimalist film unfolds as a controlled documentation of one moment of colonial violence during Israel’s occupation of Palestine—almost unremarkable in its sickening mundanity, even tame when compared to the genocidal atrocities livestreamed over the last twenty-three months. “Earlier this year, [the film] had its World premiere at @cphdox —one of the most prominent international documentary festivals held in Copenhagen—where it won the NEW:VISION award for the best boundary-pushing art films. One of many festivals proclaiming to be “apolitical”, CPH:DOX invited Denmark’s Prime Minister (and Israel supporter) Mette Frederiksen as a keynote speaker at their opening gala. CoPro, Israel’s largest documentary film production company, reputedly pushing the country’s Zionist propaganda also featured on the festival’s guest list. Elsewhere in the programme, films denouncing Israel’s longstanding occupation of Palestine and the ethnic cleansing of its people conquer headlines and snatch prizes. Such is the calibre of the film industry’s moral hypocrisy.” — Ren Scateni Continue reading via kortfilm.be/txt! _ @juliettelemonn @whatever.ren @atelier.graphoui #ramallah #palestine

lisbon, late april - early may 🦐

april 🦄

🌑 New text! In Ren Scateni’s “Grieving Tomorrows” programme at this year’s Glasgow Short Film Festival, grief is framed as denied, fragmented, or fluid, and, most often, as a political act. Essay by Martyna Ratnik. [Notes: Short films are most likely screened as part of a curated programme that enables a dialogue between them. We continue that conversation in the form of essays at talkingshorts.com/notes] . . . @glasgowshort @martyna_ratnik @whatever.ren @riarrr @angelomadsen @sarntolstice @chikako_reframing @arwaaburawa #shortfilm #shortfilms #filmfestival #filmfestivals #filmcriticism #shortfilm #shortfilms #filmfestival #filmfestivals #filmcriticism #glasgowshort #grief #mourning