Ren Scateni

Ren Scateni is hoofd programmatie bij Encounters Film Festival. Hen is ook freelance schrijver en curator, voornamelijk geïnteresseerd in experimenteel en audiovisueel werk. Hun artikelen verschenen onder meer in ArtReview en ArtReview Asia, Hyperallergic en MUBI Notebook. Ren is Trustee bij Alchemy Film & Arts.

Wed, 02/12/2025 - 14:47

On Omar Chowdhury’s BAN♡ITS

“There’s a reason why everybody hates Batman in those movies,” comments one of the titular protagonists in Omar Chowdhury’s BAN♡ITS. Set in a liminal space between Bangladesh and India, the film follows a group of self-proclaimed “destitutes” who rob the rich to give to the poor and are obsessed with Heath Ledger, because “he died for his art.” Inhabiting a lawless limbo where radical credos coexist with state-sanctioned anarchic stances these outlaws are as porous and opaque as Chowdhury’s film itself. 

KIJKWATCH

An introspective essay about the search for a place between reality and imagination: a placeless place made up out of dreams and a longing for fluidity. Slowly, the grains of the compressed image become the sands of the atopic beach, revealing an imaginary place.

KIJKWATCH

Portrait of a young teenager with mental health issues who is passionate about karate. They wander around a housing estate in East Kent, locked in verbal and physical battles with a hallucinatory demon.