While the European Commission and Member States are discussing a reduction in the level of protection for wolves, deemed too numerous, the film “Living with Wolves”, by and with Jean-Michel Bertrand, attempts to calm the debates.
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Filmmaker Jean-Michel Bertrand has been tracking wolves for ten years and three films. After The Valley of the Wolves, in 2016, And Walk with the wolvesin 2019, it returns to theaters Wednesday January 24 with Live the wolves. In his new documentary, there are first of all the landscapes of this Champsaur valley, in the Hautes-Alpes, which we discover throughout the seasons.
This is where Jean-Michel Bertrand lives, with an incredible little wooden cabin as an observation post built into the rock, on the mountainside, at an altitude of 2,040 meters: “This cabin, it’s far from everything, it’s my life, he said. My life is when I go home, raise my automatic cameras, understand the interactions between the packs, which today are numerous in our valleys of Champsaur, Valgaudemar and Dévoluy. And then, there are my little walks where I go to meet people, breeders, shepherds, hunters who say to themselves, ‘Wolves are here, what should we do?'” describes the filmmaker.
Through these back and forths, the film takes the viewer to meet these professionals, in Italy, in Switzerland, in France, in the mountains but also in the plains to evoke this often complicated cohabitation with the wolf which naturally repopulated these regions. over time. “I really like living in an environment where there is a big predator like the wolf, says a breeder. Afterwards, it also generates stress in relation to my job as a breeder, which I did not have before. And I know that today, if I were to find myself in a really tense situation, I wouldn’t rule out at all the possibility of a shot.”
“My fight, ultimately, is both to move towards dialogue and also to better understand this animal.”
Jean-Michel Bertrand, filmmakerat franceinfo
“Because today, there is a little music that we feel coming where we would like to eliminate a lot of wolves, regrets Jean-Michel Bertrand. For me, shooting a wolf is not a problem. But saying ‘you are bothered by wolves’, which is true, ‘you are suffering’, which is true, ‘we have a solution, we are going to remove wolves and lots of wolves’. Well, that’s populism because it’s a solution that doesn’t exist. There will only need to be one wolf lying around and it will be able to attack.”argues Jean-Michel Bertrand.
There is no angelism in this film but an observation and a desire to make while trying to find solutions, a tribute to people of good will.