Yahoo Lifestyle Studiocanal Reveals First Images & Details For Gilles De Maistre’s Sahara-Set ‘The Desert Child’ Ahead Of EFM Launch
EXCLUSIVE: Studiocanal has unveiled first images for French director Gilles de Maistre’s upcoming feature The Desert Child retelling the true story of a youngster raised by ostriches in the Sahara, ahead of launching the movie at the EFM.
Currently in post-production with a planned 2026 release, the feature follows Maistre’s hit Autumn and the Black Jaguar, which grossed $30M at the international box office, and upcoming release Moon The Panda, which hits French cinemas in April.
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As with most of Maistre’s previous features, which also include The Wolf and the Lion and Mia and the White Lion, the production involved working with children and real-life animals, in this case ostriches and young Fennec foxes.
The movie follows 14-year-old Sun who has written and successfully published a story based on an incredible story told by her late grandfather about a wild child called Hadara, who is saved by a group of ostriches when he becomes separated from his family in a storm, and is then raised in the desert amid a host of wild animals, including his best friend, a desert fox.
When Sun is invited to travel to the Sahara by a local community who has heard about her book, she meets Kharouba, a Nomad girl of her own age, and realizes there may be much more to Hadara than just a character in a bedtime story.
“One of the novelties of this project for Gilles, is that the screenplay is loosely inspired by a true story, which we acquired from a Swedish journalist,” comments producer Catherine Camborde, who has worked on all of Maistre’s features under his Mai-Juin Productions banner.
“In the early 20th century, this child was separated from his parents’ travelling caravan in the Sahara and was then welcomed and raised by ostriches for 10 years. We’re revisiting the myth of the wild child, made popular by characters such as Tarzan or Mowgli, but never told through such an extraordinary true story.”
Studiocanal, which previously handled sales on Autumn and the Black Jaguar and Mia and the White Lion, will unveil a first teaser for the movie at the market, revealing first images of its sweeping desert landscapes and child and animal protagonists for the first time.
Child casting for the roles of the protagonist was extensive with the production using actors aged three, six and 12 years old to play Hadara across the arc of his story. Popular French actor Kev Adams is also in the cast in the role of the grandfather as a young man.
Maistre and his animal specialists have long experience of handling real animals on set, but Camborde reveals that working with ostriches and the Fennec foxes was as challenging as working with lions, wolves and jaguars.
“As with all our productions, we did a lot of work in advance. Ostriches are extremely large animals weighing around 130 kilos (286 pounds). The ostriches we used were raised in captivity, but they’re still wild animals and need to be approached with care,” she explains.
“They have extremely long eyesight and acute hearing, so you have to take that into account when creating the set to ensure they don’t get distracted or spooked by noises and movement, both around them and in the distance.”
“Fennecs, on the other hand, are very skittish and run around all over the place. You have to get the timing right to shoot them. We treat our animals like stars on set and if they are tired, or we sense they’re not in the mood, we stop. There’s no pointing forcing it, it won’t work, there will be no alchemy.”
The film was shot close to the Moroccan villages of Erfoud and Merzouga in the Sahara Desert close to the Algerian border and Belgium over the summer of 2024.
As with all of Maistre’s productions, the animals have been since rehoused – this time in a refuge outside Marrakech, where their well-being is being paid for by Mai-Juin Productions, with the costs factored into the film’s budget.
The movie is produced by Studiocanal and Mai-Juin Productions, a Mediawan company.
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