I Hate Models stars in surreal short film Requiem for Synths

I Hate Models is the subject of a new short film Requiem for Synths, directed by award-winning Italian director and screenwriter Mitzi Peirone and co-produced by New York party brand and experiential agency Renegade and Apelago Agency founder Nina Tillberg.

Described as “a visual sonata that is part narrative and part documentary”, the four-minute film is an atmospheric, captivating watch that follows the French techno DJ stalking the anarchic streets of New York City.

Shot in the days between Halloween and the U.S. election in 2024, the masked artist — whose alias refers to a spurning of rigid systems, conformity and idol worship — cuts an intense figure among a melee of Manhattan’s outlandish characters. Some bear their own masks, others hold banners brandishing dissident slogans, while shots of armed police and newspapers with unnerving headlines blow in the wind and reflect the struggles of a disintegrating society.

“It was starting to feel as though reality itself was having an identity crisis, fueled by the loss of trust in institutions and political figures, and then further torn to shreds by the hallucinatory, year-long carnival that is New York City,” says Mitzi Peirone. “The stakes of existential precariousness and the need for an iconoclastic figure to rise are real: it was an exceptional time capsule that needed to be captured, and what a better leading man than I Hate Models.”

Making his way through this evocative setting, I Hate Models ultimately arrives inside an abandoned mall in Chinatown and locks eyes with the lens, before the visuals shift into dynamic party footage from his headline set at a Renegade event last November, soundtracked by the Disco Inferno founder’s track ‘Forever Melancholia’.

Renegade was founded by Bekim Trenova and Sam Black in 2020, with aims to subvert clubland issues such as sky-high ticket prices and radius clauses that stifle independent promoters, initially dealing in guerilla parties in unusual locations off the beaten track, including Under the K Bridge in Brooklyn which has since become a party hotspot. Renegade has now expanded to also become an experiential agency, producing films, immersive experiences, digital campaigns and developing artists and brands visually.

“I think the connection between I Hate Models and Renegade is almost immediate—our names alone align in a way that makes sense,” say Bekim Trenova and Sam Black. “Both represent a sense of defiance and rejecting the status quo. What we did with this event was really about giving back to the community that we both care about deeply. We pitched the idea of an insane Chinatown abandoned mall takeover, and the IHM team was instantly on board.

“Interestingly, the timing of the event happened to coincide with the U.S. election, which felt like an unexpected but fitting backdrop. The two-party system in the U.S. often feels like a ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ situation, and this event became our own form of protest. I Hate Models, in its essence, challenges conformity and established systems, which ties directly to Renegade’s ethos. Renegade itself represents rebellion—people who break away from the rules and defy the norms.”

Watch Requiem for Synths below.