When his girlfriend Sasha and best friend Elias give hothead Richard a harpoon for his birthday, he wants to try this new toy out right away. So the three of them set out for a day trip on a boat, but suspicion and jealousy soon start to get the upper hand. Before long, the tension has become unbearable. To make matters worse, the boat’s engine fails and then it turns out they left their supplies on shore a nerve-wracking struggle for survival ensues that spares no one’s secrets – or blood. This post-modern adaptation of a story by Edgar Allan Poe in which three shipwrecked sailors draw lots to see who has to sacrifice himself as a cannibalistic snack, is a bloodthirsty thriller that leaves sufficient space for laughs. It’s painfully obvious from (nautical) miles away that this triangular relationship is not going to end well.
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...