Biographie
Renny Bartlett was born and raised in Ottawa and Montreal, Canada. Winning an Elizabeth Greenshield Sculpture Award brought him to London, England, in 1978. There, his artwork increasingly incorporated experimental film, leading him to become the first person ever awarded a First Class Honours Degree in Film from St. Martin's School of Art.
His innovative filmmaking soon produced several remarkable shorts such as Dula (1984) and Between Heaven and Earth (1981). This evolved into feature-length films like Arktikos (1991), shot in Montreal, Russia, Italy, and the Canadian Arctic. Arktikos was a highly acclaimed hybrid essay film combining archive footage, narrative, and documentary elements.
During his time in Britain, Renny was nominated twice for the British Film Institute's Grierson Award (1988-89) for writing, directing, and producing the best documentary series on British television: Moving Stills (1989) and The Cold War Game (1988), the latter made with Noam Chomsky. His two decades of experience working in and visiting the USSR led him to collaborate closely with director Sally Potter in 1991-92 on the double Academy Award-nominated film Orlando (1992).
He then began researching Eisenstein (2000), a feature film inspired by the life of Russian revolutionary filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein. This research and writing became an epic journey from Mexico to Kazakhstan spanning eight years. Meanwhile, Renny served as director of the Praxis screenwriting centre in Vancouver, worked in script development with British Screen and the European Media Development Agency, and produced two weekly film programs for Britain's Channel 5 TV network.
Eisenstein was filmed on location in Russia, Ukraine, and Mexico in 2000. Written and directed by Renny, the Canadian-German co-production stars Simon McBurney as Eisenstein. The film was featured at festivals including Toronto, Berlin, Moscow, Taipei, and São Paulo. It was released in Canada in September 2001 and premiered at New York's Film Forum on January 2, 2002.
After completing Eisenstein, Renny wrote and presented an hour-long documentary on Eisenstein's film The Battleship Potemkin, part of the major BBC2 arts series Art That Shook The World. Broadcast in Britain on April 28, 2001, it was praised by The Sunday Times as "a minor masterpiece in its own right." Featuring contributions from leading intellectuals and critics in the arts, the series was sold worldwide and led to a second series.
At the 2001 St. Petersburg International Film Festival, Renny received the Prize of the City "for creative contribution to world cinema and activities in international cultural cooperation." Previous recipients of this award include directors François Ozon, Leos Carax, Alexander Sokurov, and Krzysztof Zanussi. Eisenstein was nominated for five Genie Awards (Canadian Academy Awards), including Best Picture, with Renny personally nominated for Best Director and Best Screenplay.
Since then, Renny has produced five hour-long programs for The Discovery Channel Europe: Zero Hour: Chernobyl (2004), a minute-by-minute recreation of the final hour before the world's worst nuclear accident; Warrior Women: Joan of Arc and Boudica (2003), two episodes of a five-part series presented by Lucy Lawless of Xena: Warrior Princess fame, which has reached an international audience of over 20 million; and most recently, True Horror: Demons and Zombies (2004), presented by Anthony Head of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame, a series sold to over 50 countries.
Renny currently has two feature films in development with British and Canadian producers.
