The Wanting Mare


The Wanting Mare is a 2020 science fiction fantasy film written and directed by Nicholas Ashe Bateman.

Plot

In a post-apocalyptic realm called Anmaere, an annual drive ships wild horses from a rundown city called Whithren to another, far-off city, Levithen. Many denizens of Whithren hope to board the boat with the horses and travel to Levithen, which they believe holds a more promising future for them.

Cast

Development

The Wanting Mare is Bateman's first feature-length film; he did not attend film school, had no visual effects training, and worked independently on the film's development, part of which was funded through a campaign on the crowdsourcing website Indiegogo. Bateman credits the earliest inspirations of the film to be Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights.
The film took over five years to make, and has over 500 visual effects shots. Cinematographer David A. Ross used a Sony A7SII with Anamorphic lenses. Bateman shot much of the film in a storage unit in Paterson, New Jersey; while other shots were filmed along the coast of the northeastern United States and in Nova Scotia, Canada.
The film was largely shot on green-screen and composited in After Effects and Blender. The film utilizes many digital matte paintings done by the director.
During the five years of production, Bateman lived in the office space that was used to edit the film and create the visual effects. During this time, the group of Bateman, David A. Ross, Z. Scott Schaefer, and Cassandra Louise Baker founded the visual effects company Maere Studios.
Shane Carruth was involved as an executive producer for a time, but he removed his name from the project in 2020 after accusations of abuse against him were made public.

Reception

In his, Eric Kohn of Indiewire called the film 'The Most Intriguing World-Building since 'The Matrix'.
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Nerdist called it a ' and Variety's Mark Keizer said in his : "the film’s one unmistakable thrill is knowing its expansive world is the brainchild of one person, a first-time director who dropped out of college, never went to film school and worked for more than five years to fulfill a vision."
The film received a positive review from Wired, The Los Angeles Times, RogerEbert.com and mixed reviews from IndieWire, RogerEbert.com, and Polygon.