Skip to main content
Living With Wolves film image; wolf walks through the snow

Living With Wolves

Vivre avec les loups

Insights

This event has passed

Canadian Premiere

With this film, Jean-Michel Bertrand concludes a multi-part project, previous entries of which VIFF has been proud to show. The nature-loving documentarian embeds himself in nature to film and study wolves—their habits, their numbers, and their migratory behaviour. It’s a labour of love for Bertrand, and for all his equanimity he cannot conceal the passion that drives him. Besides the requisite immersion in nature, Living With Wolves features a study of the politics surrounding wolf life in Western Europe—the spirited, even harsh, advocacy for and against the animals.

Farmers, union lobbies, shepherds, and other stakeholders… They all have their own perspectives, and this nuanced conversation is one of the film’s attractions. But nothing can top the views of natural life. Working with four cinematographers, Bertrand conveys the beauty of the lower Alps, and his yen for the environment is infectious. Especially notable are his infrared camera setups, which capture the lupine subjects unaware—and which provide the film’s concluding note of hope.

 

Supported by

Media Partner

Community Partner

Director
Featuring

Jean-Michel Bertrand

Credits
Country of Origin

France

Year

2023

Language

In English (dubbed) and French with English subtitles

Film Contact
18+
88 min
Documentary
France TV Distribution

Book Tickets

This event has passed.

Credits & Director

Executive Producer

Jean-Pierre Bailly

Producer

Jean-Pierre Bailly, Stéphane Millière

Screenwriter

Jean-Michel Bertrand

Cinematography

Marie Amiguet, Jean-Michel Bertrand, Bruno Peyronnet, Pierre Sellier

Editor

Laurence Buchmann

Original Music

Armand Amar

Jean-Michel Bertrand headshot; Living With Wolves director

Jean-Michel Bertrand

Jean-Michel Bertrand is a director whose passion for nature has taken him around the world. He embarked on a quest for the golden eagle, producing his award-winning documentary Vertigo of Encounter (2009). His other films include The Valley of the Wolves (2016) and Wolf Walk (2019). Living With Wolves is the final film in his wolf trilogy.

Filmography: Vertigo of Encounter (2009); The Valley of the Wolves (2016); Wolf Walk (2019)

Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre

Love

Dir. Dag Johan Haugerud
119 min

This warm, thoughtful piece offers shrewd comic observations on modern dating as it trains a quizzical eye on the trysts of a female doctor, Marianne (Andrea Bræin Hovig), and her colleague, a gay male nurse, Tor (Tayo Cittadella Jacobsen).

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

The Wedding Banquet

Dir. Andrew Ahn
103 min

This joyful comedy cleverly updates Ang Lee's 1993 gay marriage comedy and transports the action to contemporary Seattle (actually, Vancouver).

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

April

Dir. Dea Kulumbegashvili
134 min

A doggedly mysterious and haunting account of an investigation into the professionalism of a Georgian Ob-Gyn, Nina, accused of negligance, Dea Kulumbegashvili's film has been compared to the work of masters like Haneke, Glazer and Reygadas.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

On Swift Horses

Dir. Daniel Minahan
119 min

A young couple's California dream turns sour when his charismatic card shark brother (Jacob Elordi) upends their ideas about what they want. This is a sumptuous 50s melodrama with a queer viewpoint.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Another Woman

Dir. Woody Allen
77 min

Gena Rowlands as philosophy teacher whose meticulously controlled life begins to unravel after she starts to eavesdrop on a psychotherapist's sessions.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Desert of Namibia

Dir. Yôko Yamanaka
137 min

A prizewinner at Cannes, Yôko Yamanaka's second film is an acerbic portrait of an arrogant, attractive, diffident, "difficult" 21-year-old woman, Kana (a mesmerizing Yuumi Kawai), who numbly drifts between boyfriends, leaving wreckage in her wake.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre