Robin Petré, ‘Flee’ Producer Monica Hellström Pitch ‘Wolf Moon’

Danish director Robin Petré (“Solely on Earth,” “From the Wild Sea”) and Oscar-nominated producer Monica Hellström (“Flee,” “A Home Manufactured from Splinters”) have unveiled “Wolf Moon,” the third in a unfastened trilogy exploring the relation between people and animals.

Offered at CPH:FORUM, the business occasion of Copenhagen’s worldwide documentary movie competition (CPH:DOX), the doc explores how human exercise is reshaping animal conduct inflicting wildlife to be extra energetic at night time to keep away from people.

Pitched to key business figures in Copenhagen’s historic Grand Teatret, “Wolf Moon” was described by Petré as “a sensorial, immersive, visceral journey that goes deeper and deeper into the night time, into the darkish – nearer and nearer to the animals.”

“We’re extra alone than ever,” the Danish director tells Selection, citing WWF figures, which reveal a staggering 69% world decline in wildlife since 1970. “But all the historical past of humankind is so inextricably linked to animals. There’s an inherent, deep want in people to be surrounded by animals and nature. And this runs by way of the movie: this longing to reconnect with nature that we’re more and more getting distanced from,” she says.

Petré emphasizes that the movie lets animals turn out to be characters in their very own story, inserting the viewer at eye stage with them to create a dynamic gaze between human and animal.

The movie is structured round 4 intertwined components, together with three night-time expeditions. The primary, already partially shot, reveals night time patrollers in Japan wielding GPS antennas to trace bears roaming nearer and nearer to town and chase them away.

The second expedition ventures into the Swedish forest, the place night time safaris seek for wolves and moose, in a twilight world the place they’ll nonetheless exist past human interference.

The third journey is predicated on analysis by Dr. Lianne Zanette in South Africa, the place digicam traps reveal that mammals are extra afraid of the sound of human voices than of lion roars and even gunshots.

Interwoven with these night-time expeditions is the movie’s fourth layer: a theatrical adaptation impressed by Djuna Barnes’ “Nightwood,” a novel steeped in nocturnal imagery. Actors will mimic animal conduct on stage, blurring the road between human and animal.

This closing layer will give the movie a theatrical really feel. “Simply as we mild a theater stage, we create a staged, artificially lit human world at the hours of darkness of night time, within the wilderness, which replicates the aesthetics of a play,” Petré explains. “We’re chasing them into the night time, and we’re creating, for our personal comfort, an area the place we are able to see them.”

“Wolf Moon” marks Petré’s first collaboration with Hellström, a member of the Academy of Movement Image Arts and Sciences. “Once I noticed the footage Robin despatched me, I used to be fully blown away,” Hellström tells Selection. “She has an inventive eye that I haven’t seen in such a very long time. The arrogance in her storytelling is outstanding.”

Whereas its idea could sound summary, Petré assures that “Wolf Moon” will stay as accessible as her earlier movies. To attain this, she has as soon as once more enlisted long-time collaborator Charlotte Munch Bengtsen (“All That Breathes,” “The Act of Killing”), who edited each “Solely on Earth” and “From the Wild Sea,” her award-winning debut. Each movies premiered on the Berlinale.

Presently in growth, the €949,000 ($1.25 million) movie is partly funded by the Danish Movie Institute and Hellström’s Ström Photos.

Thirty tasks spanning early to late growth and manufacturing are being pitched at CPH:FORUM, which runs in Copenhagen till March 27.