09/07/2025 - The British filmmaker's new pic, which is being sold by Rediance, centres on a young girl who wanders through a mysterious world devoid of adults

UK experimental filmmaker and visual artist Ben Rivers returns to the Locarno Film Festival (6-16 August) with Mare’s Nest, his latest hybrid fiction feature set to world-premiere in the gathering’s International Competition (see the news). The film was produced by Andrea Queralt, hot off her Cannes success with Óliver Laxe’s Sirât [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Óliver Laxe
film profile], which picked up the Jury Prize in the main competition in May.

Yesterday, Variety first reported that Rediance has boarded world sales on the title, marking its third collaboration with Rivers after Bogancloch [+see also:
film review
interview: Ben Rivers
film profile] – recently picked up for North American distribution by Cinema Guild – and Krabi, 2562 [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ben Rivers
film profile], which screened at Locarno in 2024 and was included in the festival’s “Moving Ahead” section in 2019.

Blending fiction, documentary, poetic essay and fable, Mare’s Nest follows Moon (newcomer Moon Guo Barker), a young girl who wanders through a mysterious, adult-free world. During her journey, she encounters a sage and a translator in a mountain hut, and a series of characters that offer different models of living. As she observes, learns and moves forward, the film opens up a vision of an uncertain yet hope-filled future.

According to Rivers, the story was born of “an accumulative feeling of dread” for the world being left to future generations. The initial spark came from the effects of COVID-19 on children, combined with the influence of Don DeLillo’s climate change-themed play The Word for Snow. He crafted the part of Moon specifically for Barker, shaping the story into a kind of near-future road movie tinged with unease, but also wonder.

In line with Rivers’ taste for layered realities, the movie includes a film-within-a-film: his 2022 short The Minotaur, presented here as a creation by the children within the narrative.

Shot over three years in Menorca and the UK, Mare’s Nest was produced by Rivers for Urth Films (UK) together with Queralt’s outfit, 4A4 Productions (France), in co-production with Fabrizio Polpeti for La Bête (France), Aonan Yang for GreenGround (Canada) and ARTE France’s La Lucarne arm.