The Wanting Mare

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.

• Jordan Monaghan - Moira
• Ashleigh Nutt - young Moira
• Christine Kellogg-Darrin - old Moira
• Nicholas Ashe Bateman - young Lawrence
• Josh Clark - old Lawrence
• Yasamin Keshtkar - Eirah
• Edmond Cofie - Hadeon
• Maxine Muster - Elien

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.^[3][4] Bateman credits the earliest inspirations of the film to be Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights.^[5][6]

The film took over five years to make, and has over 500 visual effects shots.^[7][8] Cinematographer David A. Ross used a Sony A7SII with Anamorphic lenses.^[9] Bateman shot much of the film in a storage unit in Paterson, New Jersey;^[10][11] while other shots were filmed along the coast of the northeastern United States and in Nova Scotia, Canada.^[12]

The film was largely shot on green-screen^[13] and composited in After Effects and Blender.^[12] The film utilizes many digital matte paintings done by the director.^[14]

During the five years of production, Bateman lived in the office space that was used to edit the film and create the visual effects.^[13] During this time, the group of Bateman, David A. Ross, Z. Scott Schaefer, and Cassandra Louise Baker founded the visual effects company Maere Studios.^[15][14]

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.^[16][3][17]

In his review, Eric Kohn of Indiewire called the film 'The Most Intriguing World-Building since 'The Matrix'.^[18]

Nerdist called it a 'dreamy, dazzling debut^[19]' and Variety's Mark Keizer said in his review: "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,^[20] The Los Angeles Times,^[21] RogerEbert.com^[22] and mixed reviews from IndieWire,^[23] RogerEbert.com,^[24] and Polygon.^[25]