The 7th Hainan Island International Film Festival is scheduled to be held from 3-9 December in Sanya. We have a unique connection with this festival, where we initaited and partnered on the largest Charlie Chaplin retrospective programme in 2020.

30 films from around the world have been selected as part of this year’s main competition, including several domestic titles’ world premieres.

British filmmaker Ben River’s recent new film Mare’s Test is among them. After its World Premiere at the Locarno Film Festival this year, it continued to tour across different film festivals around the world, including the BFI London Film Festival.

Year | 2025
Duration | 98 min
Language | English, Catalan
Country |UK, France, Canada
World Premiere | Locarno Competition

Synopsis

Moon travels through a mysterious world free of adults. She meets a sage, and her translator, in a mountain hut, where she tries to understand what is happening. She meets many others who show her different possibilities for living. She observes and moves on into an unknown future.

About Ben Rivers

Ben Rivers is an artist and filmmaker based in London, England. He has made around 40 short and feature length films which tread a fine line between documentary and fiction, and often focusing on people who have separated themselves from mainstream society. Rivers won the EYE Art Film Prize in 2016, as well as FIPRESCI Prize at the 68th Venice for his first feature film TWO YEARS AT SEA. He recently had a full retrospective at Jeu de Plume in Paris.

In 2019, he collaborated with Thai auteur Anocha Suwichakornpong on KRABI, 2562, which was the opening film for Moving Ahead section at Locarno. His last feature film BOGANCLOCH premiered in the main competition at Locarno, and won Second Prize for Best Feature Film at Festival dei Popoli and Prix Nouvelles Vagues at Festival International du Film de La Roche-sur-Yon. MARE’S NEST marks his third time in main competition at Locarno.

We wish Ben best of luck to the competition ahead and shall look forward to an opportunity to interview the director.

For more information about the Hainan Island International Film Festival, please visit here.