It was only a few months ago we learned that Primer and Upstream Color director Shane Carruth would be retiring from filmmaking after his next directorial effort, and while we don’t know what that project may be yet, he’s still working on other films. One project that certainly has a Carruthian touch is The Wanting Mare, a dark fantasy fable he executive produced that is set to make its world premiere at the Chattanooga Film Festival this weekend, which is being presented digitally.
Directed by Nicholas Ashe Bateman, who is making his feature debut but has worked on the visual effects of Wendy and the forthcoming The Green Knight, the story follows a line of women who pass a single dream through multiple generations. Having remarkably been shot almost entirely in a storage unit in New Jersey (!), the first trailer shows off some deeply impressive atmosphere for what was certainly a shoestring budget. Embracing a DIY approach, Bateman has also been crafting the visual effects for the film for the past five years.
See the trailer below for the film starring Jordan Monaghan, Yasamin Keshtkar, Edmond Cofie, Nicholas Ashe Bateman, with Josh Clark and Christine Kellogg-Darrin.
In the world of Anmaere, north of the city of Whithren, wild horses run through the moorlands and up the coast. These horses are the city’s most valuable export, and as a result are hunted, trapped, sold & shipped across the sea once a year. For those in Whithren, this trade creates lucrative and exciting possibilities: the chance to escape their constantly sweltering city to head to the Western continent of Levithen, or just to begin again. Meanwhile, in a small house just north of the city, a young woman dies in childbirth. Her last words are an attempt to tell her daughter of the life she will have and her inheritance of a recurring dream that must be kept secret; for it contains the memories of another age long before us, one where magic and myth were alive in the world.
The Wanting Mare makes its world premiere at the Chattanooga Film Festival this weekend and badges are on sale now.