"Wildling" written by Gregory Mann

(Release Info London schedule; April 20th, 2018, Empire Cinrmas, Leicester Square)

"Wildling"

A teenage girl’s coming of age comes with a terrifying twist in this spellbinding take on the werewolf legend.

Since birth, Anna (Bel Powley) has been raised in isolation by a man she knows only as Daddy (Brad Dourif) who has done everything possible to conceal the truth about the girl’s origins from her. But when the teenage Anna is suddenly thrust into the real world under the protection of no-nonsense police officer Ellen (Liv Tyler), it soon becomes clear that the young woman is far from ordinary. Unable to adjust to a normal life, Anna finds herself drawn instead to the wild freedom of the forest while struggling to resist the growing bloodlust that has awakened inside her. This moodily atmospheric thriller combines supernatural scares with a myth-like tale of self discovery.

It's an origin story about a girl named Anna who goes through a gradual, irreversible transformation. It's similar to what we all go through during puberty, but for Anna it goes much further than that. The story is intrigued by strange mythological creatures like 'The Big Bad Wolf, 'The Snow Queen' or 'Rumpelstiltskin'. So "Wildling" creates an own misunderstood creature. The film is a fantasy about our primitive roots. Anna's story is partly inspired by the tragedy of 'Kaspar Hauser', a German youth who grew up in the isolation of a darkened cell in the 18th century, completely oblivious to the outside world. Werner Herzog made a beautiful film about this individual in 1974, "The Enigma Of Kaspar Hauser". "Wildling" is a female-empowered film. The heroes are women, while the male characters spend most of the movie trying to keep pace with them. This isn't' a conscious decision but grew naturally out of the story. The film is about the notion of freedom, it begins with captivity. "Wildling" is a blend as well, part drama, romance and fantasy, part horror, thriller, and action. And since every movie needs humor, you'll also find comedic moments.  

'Wildlings' are a nearly extinct parallel branch of homo sapiens that has survived until present day. We're originally inspired by werewolf motifs, but quickly ended up stripping away all the supernatural elements such as the full moon, the silver bullets, the magic amulets and so on, and we decided that our transformation would happen slowly over the course of the whole film and be more grounded in actual biology. This makes room to explore the inner struggles of the creature. 'Wildlings' are strongly connected to nature, and their actions are purely driven by instincts like the will to survive, the restless search for food and the desire to procreate. With the hero Anna, the film wants to showcase these primitive instincts as a glorious part of our existence, all the while taking the audience on an exciting, visceral journey of discovering the wild in all of us. At it's core, the film is about identity and the importance of embracing your true nature. It's the key to being free.