The family film The Wolf and The Lion is coming your way just in time for the March Break. 

The Wolf and the Lion is  directed by Gilles de Maistre who also wrote the script with his wife Prune de Maistre. The film stars Molly Kunz,  as Alma, a young woman who returns to her late grandfather’s cabin. There, she finds herself taking care of a wolf cub and lion cub who grow up together as brothers.

Shot in the stunning Canadian landscape, The Wolf and The Lion centers around Alma. She returns to her childhood home in the Canadian wilderness after learning about the death of her beloved grandfather.  In the forest, she comes across the wreckage of a plane for a circus with a lion cub poached from its mother in Africa.

The cub falls into her hands when a bald eagle knocks it out of the nest it fell into during the crash. She decides not to hand it over to the forest rangers. After all, her grandfather campaigned against the mistreatment of animals in circuses. At the same time, a female wolf who had somewhat befriended Alma’s grandfather comes to find refuge in Alma’s house with her pup. Both are  running away from two scientists.

The lion cub and the wolf cub live like brothers; they play together and both are kept well-fed thanks to the she-wolf. But the wolf mother disappears (A tranquilizer dart that the two scientists use hits her. They wish to relocate her to a breeding facility for endangered wolf species). This happens while Alma is off on a 2-day trip involving a classical music audition. She wants to get into the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra.

This leaves Alma the only one to raise and protect the cubs while the three of them live in peace for a year or two. During which time, she names the wolf pup Mozart and the lion cub “Dreamer” (in apparent reference to the Ozzy Osbourne song). After Alma has an accident, her Native Canadian godfather Joe (Graham Greene) must notify the authorities in order to save her. That’s despite the fact that this separates the trio. The three of them then seek each other out to be together again.

Director De Maistre also discussed the filming of his previous film Mia and the White Lion. During that time, he had a discussion with wolf trainer Andrew Simpson and lion trainer Kevin Richardson. That discussion gave him the idea for the film.  Paddington (the wolf) and Walter (the lion) were raised together from the age of 5 weeks.^[4] Only a few people, including Molly Kunz could approach them – the film crew and the other actors were behind cages. The production adapted to its star animals, which resulted in 16 script revisions. After filming, Paddington and Walter continue to live together in Canada on Andrew Simpson’s reservation.

 The film is opening on March break across Canada starting with March 11.

Our Bonnie Laufer spoke with director Gilles de Maistre and star Molly Kunz about working on the film and how having to stop shooting during COVID actually worked in their favour.