A darkly comic folk horror about the desperate search for a horse’s skull to lead an ancient folk procession is set for a global digital release on WeTransfer’s WePresent and Short of the Week from Thursday 29th October, and Vimeo Staff Picks the next day. Based on a true story, Pen Mari (Mare’s Head) follows a man who is drawn into the black market for animal body parts as he tries to honour a Celtic folk tradition.
The 13-minute film had its world premiere at Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas, and its UK premiere at Bristol’s Encounters Film Festival in 2025, before screening at London Short Film Festival 2026. It was made with the support of the BFI NETWORK, awarding National Lottery funding, and in collaboration with WePresent, the arts platform of WeTransfer.
Directed by Welsh filmmaker Siôn Marshall-Waters, written by Cornish writer Callum Mitchell and produced by Denzil Monk, founder of Cornish ecosophical production house Bosena, Pen Mari merges the Welsh folk tradition of the Mari Lwyd with elements of Montol, Penzance’s midwinter celebration, home to its own `Obby `Oss (horse-skull figure) tradition, Penglaz. Starring Rhodri Evan, Jowan Jacobs and Robert Pugh, the film plays the banal against the surreal, setting a historic folkloric ritual on the social fringes of contemporary rural Britain to explore life, death, rebirth and small towns.
Siôn Marshall-Waters is a Welsh director whose work spans documentary, fiction and moving image. His Super 8 documentary short Forest Coal Pit, made through Ffilm Cymru Wales and BFI NETWORK’s Beacons scheme in association with BBC Cymru Wales, screened at festivals including BFI London Film Festival, Cork International Film Festival and Edinburgh International Film Festival and was shortlisted for a Grierson Award in 2022. Pen Mariis his first fiction film.
Marshall-Waters says: “I have a deep fascination with rural Britain, and I’m drawn to places, people and different worlds, so bringing this alive was my main motivation in making Pen Mari.”
“Through the protagonist’s increasingly desperate hunt for an actual horse’s skull, we journey into the connection between the banal and the absurd in these folklore traditions. Having been to many similar processions, I’ve always been struck by the intersection between the historic and the everyday – like watching a cloaked horse’s skull parade around a pub while people try to eat their Sunday dinner, or a man dressed as the Green Man ordering a kebab. For me, Pen Mari is an extension of that meeting point between superstition, history and potential magic, but also the vital determination to keep something alive through these ancient rituals.”
Produced by Bosena, the Cornish production company behind Mark Jenkin’s Rose of Nevada and BIFA-winning Enys Men, and Christopher Morris’s A Year in a Field, Pen Mari will be released in the days leading up to Samhain, or Halloween, the start of the dark half of the year in Celtic tradition, across a hat-trick of global platforms.
WePresent is WeTransfer’s arts platform, acting as the company’s cultural torchbearer to a monthly audience of approximately 3 million in 190 countries. Collaborating with emerging young talent to renowned artists such as Marina Abramović, Riz Ahmed, FKA twigs or David Sedaris, WePresent showcases the best in art, photography, film, music, literature and more, championing diversity in everything it does.
Holly Fraser, Editor-in-Chief at WePresent, says, “At WePresent we aim to commission stories that are not just entertaining but that also offer new perspectives and showcase the diversity of creative expression in different regions and parts of the world. We’re very proud to have partnered with BFI NETWORK and Bosena to help bring Siôn and Callum’s vision for Pen Mari to life. By using the folk horror genre to highlight the idiosyncrasies in rural British life, Pen Mari is at once both unnerving but also eerily familiar – and completely original.”
Short of the Week, a launchpad for a new generation of filmmakers, is a qualifying channel for both the British Independent Film Awards and the Canadian Screen Awards, giving filmmakers a pathway to recognition beyond their online release.
Rob Munday, Managing Editor at Short of the Week, says, “A singular vision, Siôn Marshall-Waters’ Pen Mari is as unsettling as it is insightful, transporting audiences beyond the familiar to uncover the centuries-old rituals and strange traditions that continue to shape life in Britain’s small towns.”
Vimeo Staff Picks is Vimeo’s curated, worldwide showcase of short films, followed closely by the industry to spot new directing talent. Vimeo’s Curation team said, “This is memorable and risky filmmaking. The haunting tone and imagery are very striking.”
B Corp-certified Bosena was named a “Cornish powerhouse” in Screen International’s 2025 Brit 50 ‘ones to watch’ list of UK production companies on the rise. Founder Denzil Monk says: “With Bosena we are drawn to rural or coastal contexts as rich material and perspectives, rather than limitations. Joining together with Siôn Marshall-Waters to make this Welsh/Cornish Celtic storytelling ‘cocktail’ has been a creative pleasure and joy. We’re honoured to have BFI NETWORK, WePresent, Vimeo and Short of the Week working with us to give this purposefully unsettling rural short its global outing, following the strong reactions at film festivals.”
