Reneepoptosis
2018 · 10m · Estados Unidos
Directed by Renee Zhan
Genres: experimental, fantasy, surrealism
Tones: absurdist, contemplative, whimsical
Three Renees set out on a quest to find God, who is also Renee, travelling the hills and valleys of Renee and discovering the joys, trials and mysteries of being Renee.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Finally, a film that treats the absurd as a legitimate cosmology—three Renees looking for God-who-is-also-Renee isn't clever wordplay, it's a genuine ontological prank that most festivals would reflexively reject, which is exactly why it's brilliant.
Zhan works within a lineage of structuralist cinema and philosophical comedy (Rivette, Jodorowsky), but the film's commitment to tonal whimsy sometimes undermines the conceptual rigor it's reaching toward—the execution wavers between formal investigation and charming sketch.
The decision to cast every role as Renee could've been gimmicky, but Zhan uses the repetition as a formal constraint that forces the camera to find meaning in gesture and landscape instead of relying on character differentiation—that singular choice makes a 10-minute film feel genuinely meditative.