The Wanting Mare
The Wanting Mare is a 2020 science fiction 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. Development. "The Wanting Mare" is Bateman's first feature-length film; he did not attend film school and worked independently on the film's development, part of which was  funded through a campaign on the crowdsourcing website Indiegogo. Shane Carruth was involved with executive production for a time, but he removed his name from the project in 2020 after accusations of abuse against him were made public. Bateman shot much of the film in a storage unit in Paterson, New Jersey; other shots were filmed along the coast of the northeastern United States and in Nova Scotia, Canada. Reception. The film received a positive review from "Wired" and mixed reviews from "IndieWire", "RogerEbert.com", "Variety", and "Polygon".