Renee Zhan, whose Reneepoptosis won the Jury Prize for Animated Short at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, has joined Blinkink for worldwide representation spanning commercials, branded content and music videos. This marks her first representation in the ad arena.
A Chinese-American director and animator from Houston, Texas, Zhan is now based in London. After graduating from Harvard University, Zhan–like many Blinkink directors–honed her craft at the National Film & Television School. Her graduation film O Black Hole features a woman who can’t stand the passing of time turning herself into a black hole. It is currently doing the rounds on the festival circuit, including the Chicago Film Festival and the London Short Film Festival, with shortlists at the student BAFTA’s and SXSW.
Zhan's work explores a range of topics such as body, nature and sexuality. Yet all of her films are well balanced between the lovely and the visceral with pockets of dark humor emerging when you least expect it. Her work reflects a knack for finding beauty in everything.
Zhan uses lots of different textures and materials that have a tactile feel to create work full of richness. From hand-drawn 2D to watercolor to clay animation, she is constantly pushing boundaries so that every project is uniquely different.
The nomadic Texan wrote Reneepoptosis, the first film she made after graduating National Film & Television School while on a traveling fellowship in Japan. Zhan simply describes this short as “a bunch of Renees who go on a quest to find God, who’s also me.” In addition to its Sundance win, the film made its mark elsewhere on the festival circuit with screenings at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), SXSW and Locarno.
Also a fest favorite is Zhan’s film Soft Animals which has been screened at Annecy, TIFF, Edinburgh, Encounters, and Dok Leipzig.
Zhan was also one of the featured animators of Blinkink’s episode of Off The Air for Adult Swim. Blinkink was the third ever guest-curator of the long-running series; Blinkink’s episode was a smorgasbord of animation and live-action directors, musicians, visual artists and comedians, thematically mushed together, punctuated with Zhan’s distinctive style.
