NEW YORK, NY, October 20, 2015- Rising Brit actress Bel Powley will star in a new elevated horror tale, Fritz Bohm’s “Wildling” alongside Liv Tyler, who also co-produces with Trudie Styler’s Maven Pictures. Styler produces alongside her Maven partners Celine Rattray (The Kids Are All Right) and Charlotte Ubben. In Wildling, Powley will play a young girl ‘Anna’ who has spent her entire life in a single room monitored by a figure she knows only as ‘Daddy’ (Brad Dourif, of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest). Anna is told that there is a creature with sharp claws and teeth outside the house that roams the woods called the ‘Wildling’. But at 16, she is rescued by a small-town sheriff ‘Ellen’ (Liv Tyler) and for the first time in her life experiences the outside world, soon learning there’s no such thing as the Wildling. But as she begins to flourish as a young woman, a series of unsettling events unfolds. Ellen becomes suspicious — is Anna the cause or the victim? When events turn deadly, she is forced to act. As the sheriff, she must protect the town. As a surrogate mother, she must protect Anna . . . . James LeGros will portray the Wolf Man, an eccentric shaman who lives in the forest. 

Powley has quickly established herself as one of the most exciting young actresses working today recently winning Best Actress at the Gotham Awards for her role in Marielle Heller’s Sundance hit The Diary Of A Teenage Girl in which she plays a sexually precocious girl living in 1970s San Francisco. This was followed in quick succession by eye-catching performances in A Royal Night Out and Equals opposite Kristen Stewart and Nicholas Hoult. The 23-year-old Brit has a number of other projects in the pipelines including Haifaa Mansour’s A Storm In The Stars, where she is set to star opposite Elle Fanning and Douglas Booth in the dramatization of the love affair between the poet Percy Shelley and 18-year-old Mary Wollstonecraft — which resulted in Mary writing Frankenstein. Powley would play Claire Clairmont, Shelley’s stepsister and lover of Lord Byron.

The film is being directed by the visually masterful, new German director Fritz Bohm who makes his feature debut. Bohm graduated from HFF (University of Television & Film Munich) with the award-winning short Moonman, which became one of the most successful HFF graduate films of the decade, winning numerous awards worldwide. Bohm also co-wrote the screenplay along with Florian Eder and David C. Palmer. Wildling is currently in pre-production and is set to begin filming at the end of the month.

About Maven Pictures

Maven Pictures is a New York-based film development, production and financing company co-founded by Oscar-nominated producer and veteran film executive Celine Rattray and BAFTA-nominated producer, filmmaker, actress and activist Trudie Styler. Styler, a BAFTA-nominated and BIFA-winning producer (Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Moon) and Oscar-nominated filmmaker Rattray (who won a Golden Globe for The Kids Are All Right) focus on innovative storytelling with premiere talent. Together, they work to produce high quality independent films while taking advantage of cultural resources in New York and London and working with top tier filmmakers.

Maven finances development and provides equity for films across a wide range of budgets and for distribution across all platforms. Maven Pictures produced GIRL MOST LIKELY, – directed by Oscar-nominated duo Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini (AMERICAN SPLENDOR) and starring Kristen Wiig (star of BRIDESMAIDS, the highest grossing R-rated female comedy ever),, Annette Bening, Darren Criss and Matt Dillon. The film premiered In Toronto and was released by Lionsgate Films. Maven also produced FILTH, starring James McAvoy, Jim Broadbent, and Jamie Bell, recently released in the UK, and becoming the country’s second highest grossing R-rated film of the year. Maven’s also produced, BLACK NATIVITY is a modernized take on Langston Hughes’ classic musical and stars Forest Whitaker, Angela Bassett, Jennifer Hudson, Tyrese Gibson and Mary J Blige. Fox Searchlight released wide. Maven produced TEN THOUSAND SAINTS, an adaptation of the best-selling novel (NY Times Notable Book of 2011, finalist for LA Times’ Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction) by award winning author Eleanor Henderson. The film was directed by Pulcini and Berman, starring Ethan Hawke, Emile Hirsch, Hailee Steinfeld, and Asa Butterfield. TEN THOUSAND SAINTS premiered at Sundance 2015, and was sold to Screen Media. Maven executive produced the UK film MISS YOU ALREADY, directed by award winning Catherine Hardwicke, written by Morwenna Banks, and starring award winning actresses Drew Barrymore and Toni Collette. Lionsgate will release in the fall after it’s premiere at the Toronto Film Festival. Rattray and Styler also executive produced STILL ALICE, directed by award winning duo Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland, based on the novel by Lisa Genova, for which Julianne Moore won an Oscar for Best Actress. Maven is in post on Andrea Arnold’s AMERICAN HONEY, starring Shia Labeouf.

About Studio Mao

Studio Mao is a premiere global content management company founded in 2006 with a strong focus on motion picture production, development and distribution. The company produces feature films, including the critically-acclaimed award winning film Filth by the author of Trainspotting Irvine Welsh in which James Mcavoy won Best Actor awards at the Scottish BAFTA’s, British Independent Film Awards, Empire Awards and London Critics Circle Film Awards. The film’s director Jon S. Baird also won the London Critics Circle Breakthrough British Filmmaker award and the film was nominated on multiple occasions for Best Feature Film. Filth was the highest grossing independent film in England in 2013 and was produced in collaboration with industry leaders Maven Pictures (Trudie Styler, Celine Rattray) and Steel Mill Pictures (Ken Marshall). Studio Mao also collaborated with Maven Pictures on Girl Most Likely starring Kristen Wiig and Darren Criss, and Ten Thousand Saints starring Ethan Hawke, Hailee Steinfeld and Asa Butterfield.

The Studio Mao brand is synonymous with high quality, original and bold content that is distributed to markets around the world. The company is actively involved in developing its proprietary HD content management and video streaming platform “STP™” designed to securely deliver content worldwide and on multiple platforms. Subscribers will be able to view Studio Mao movie releases and content utilizing STP™ technology that will further permit an interactive experience with dynamic and live HD feeds.

The company’s open source mantra is “Leave no creative stone unturned”.

For more information about Studio Mao, please visit www.studiomao.com

Contact:

Steve Kent
asst@studiomao.com
(212) 961-6882