White God (2014) - Animals As Actors

lionsuit (62)in #film • 6 years ago (edited)

The journey of Hagen and Lili.
This is a great film.

Directed by Kornél Mundruczó, written by Mundruczó, Viktória Petrányi, and Kata Wéber.

In a sense it's a mirrored coming of age. Two friends are torn apart and thrown into the world, to be forced to grow, to change. Love remains. Very heavy a times. But love remains.

They used 250 real dogs in this film, not CGI. The dogs were found in shelters and eventually all of them found forever homes.

They used two dogs named Luke and Bodie for the main pup, Hagen, and interchanged them as needed.

They had experts on site to check the dogs' feet after each running take, making sure paws were safe.

Amazing stuff.

That said, no matter how trained an animal is, no matter how talented the trainers and handlers are, it's very impressive to see a filmmaker pull off any film, much less a great film, much less a great film that relies this heavily on cooperation from our K9 teammates.