12/08/2025 - Ben Rivers delivers an ode to the reckless and carefree nature of childhood in this poetic and enigmatic portrait of an array of characters dancing towards an unknown destination

A year after presenting Bogancloch [+see also:
film review
interview: Ben Rivers
film profile] – a heartrending movie about a Scottish recluse – at the Locarno Film Festival, British director Ben Rivers is returning to the Swiss gathering with Mare’s Nest [+see also:
trailer
film profile] which has been selected in competition. Mysterious and cinematographically powerful, his latest feature film invites the audience to dream about a utopian world in which children make the rules, young protagonists of a narrative over which they have total control. Deprived of adults, the world in which these youngsters live is (seemingly) unspoiled, free and wild, a kind of locus amoenus in which to experiment with alternative ways of being in the world. But, despite the nigh-on paradisiacal atmosphere, we feel that danger is just around the corner and that everything could change at any moment.

Moon (Moon Guo Barker), the film’s protagonist, roams through this mysterious world dominated by children who live totally independently of adults. In a mountain cabin, Moon meets two uncanny characters who speak to her about the secrets of the universe: a scholar - a kind of wise seer who expresses herself in sibylline sentences - and her interpreter. Over the course of her journey-pilgrimage, she also makes the acquaintance of other children who sing, act and dance for her, showing her new ways of being in the world and of interacting, not only with humans, but with the animals and nature that surround her. Despite being happy in their company, Moon continues her relentless journey towards an unknown future, a future which she welcomes with a wide smile.

It’s this smile - infecting viewers by the end of the film - which sets this uncategorisable work apart, a work which borrows from experimental, documentary and fairy tale forms to tell a tale about a utopia which sees children deciding how the future will look. Based on Don DeLillo’s one-act play The Word for Snow, Mare’s Nest is a poetic essay in which the fears and anxieties of our time, especially those relating to climate change, are filtered through the delightfully playful and carefree eyes of children.

As stated by the director himself, the idea for the film came from a “growing sense of terror” over the world which future generations will inherit. This apocalyptic line of thought drove the director to imagine a world in which his young protagonist Moon could dream up a different outcome, where an alternative narrative to the one adults are determined to write plays out.

A lysergic road movie both wonderful and worrying, which is also reminiscent of Pasolini-style movies along the lines of Oedipus Rex or Medea, Mare’s Nest advances on multiple levels, like a Russian doll revealing its true nature layer by layer. As with his previous films, Ben Rivers invites us to follow and observe his characters who have chosen to distance themselves from society and to discard the social mask that all of us are forced to wear. In this sense, Mare’s Nest is a starting point, a playground in which to make intentionally oblique narratives offering alternative approaches, come together and clash.

Mare’s Nest was produced by Urth Productions and 4A4 Productions in co-production with La Bête, Le Fresnoy - Studio national des arts contemporains and GreenGround Productions (Canada). Rediance (Cina) are handling international sales.

(Translated from Italian)