Rene Matić's Many Rivers tours to Austria as part of their solo show upon this rock.

Multiple streams of blood and DNA converge in any family history. But there are often others that remain largely hidden or submerged. Rene Matić’s video Many Rivers is an intimate, moving portrait of the artist’s father, Paul, and the struggles he has faced, that opens out into a stark and sobering exposure of the divisive, destructive strictures of race and class in post-war Britain. When Rene was growing up, Paul was a figure of anecdote and passing recollection, whose chequered past (bad boy, Rude boy, soul boy), uncertain present and unpredictable, health-blighted future bring mixed reactions from those who are close to him – Rene’s mother, Paul’s doting sister, and the other siblings with whom he shared a home on a Peterborough housing estate. Paul has long been a captivating riddle to his daughter and is evidently still something of a mystery to himself – although his emotions and compulsions start to become clearer the more that he shares and confides, most notably in his encounter with his own similarly absent father. In his mercurial, occasionally wayward life, Paul has been and done many things (some of which he is proud of, some of which he might want to forget), but he is, most of all, a survivor – a fact that this compelling, heartfelt film deftly and vividly celebrates.

Many Rivers (2022) by Rene Matić was commissioned by Film and Video Umbrella as part of BEYOND #2.