Toby Stephens & Umi Myers Lead Māori Gothic Horror ‘Mārama’ Toby Stephens ( Black Sails , Die Another Day ) and Uni Myers ( Bob Marley: One Love , Dope Girls ) are starring in Māori Gothic horror Mārama , which has also cast Ariāna Osborne ( Madam , In a Flash ) in a lead role. Shooting on the gender-bending film is underway in New Zealand, which is known as Aotearoa in the Māori language. Set in North Yorkshire in Victorian England in 1859, the film follows a young Māori woman’s fight to reclaim her identity and indigenous culture.
It comes from Māori writer-director Taratoa Stappard ( Taumanu, Emkhatsini ) and also features Erroll Shand ( Savage , The Luminaries ) and Jordan Mooney ( The Bluff , Pike River ). Sharlene George, Co-CEO and founding Partner of international production company The Sweetshop, is producing. Rickylee Russell-Waipuka and Rouzie Hassanova are also producing with Paraone Gloyne as Māori language and culture producer.
Executive Producers include Victoria Dabbs and Gal Greenspan for Sweetshop Entertainment, Jill Macnab and Phil Bremner for Vendetta Films and Badie Ali, Hamza Ali and Greg Newman for MPI Media. “This film will be confronting, bloody and entirely unique, and I’m excited to be forging a new genre: Māori Gothic horror,” said the New Zealand-born Stappard, who lives in the UK. The film has support from the Tumu Whakaata Taonga/the New Zealand Film Commission, imagineNATIVE, The Black List, TIFF, ZIFF and the Be.