Three sisters aged between seven and 15, who live alone as their mother vanishes for whole swathes of time, and when social services demand a family meeting, the eldest sister, Laura, plans to find a stand-in for their mother.
Taratoa Stappard’s brooding debut feature plunges us into the dour moors of 1859 North Yorkshire, where the British Empire’s reach casts long and twisted shadows. Mary Stevens (Ariāna Osborne), a young Māori teacher from Aotearoa (New Zealand), arrives in search of family truths, only to find the man who summoned her already dead and no clear path home. Stranded in an unfamilia...