‘Wolfwalkers’ Directors Talk Inspirations Behind Their Most Ambitious Film To Date & The “Epic” Animated Series Cartoon Saloon Is Crafting For Apple TV+ Deadline 2/22/2021
With
Wolfwalkers, directors Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart looked to enter uncharted creative territory, while closing out an acclaimed ‘Irish Folklore Trilogy’ that kicked off over a decade ago.
Produced by small-but-mighty, Irish animation studio Cartoon Saloon, Moore’s previous features,
The Secret of Kells (2009) and
Song of the Sea (2014), each earned Oscar nominations. But it’s with
Wolfwalkers that he appears to be on the cusp of a breakthrough win.
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Marking his longtime collaborator Stewart’s directorial debut, the film distributed by Apple TV+ and GKIDS is set in 1650, in the medieval, Irish town of Kilkenny. Its protagonist, Robyn, is an apprentice hunter, who journeys with her father from England to help take out a pack of wolves. Long confined by the
Wolfwalkers wraps a story of a unique friendship around troubling Irish history gazettextra.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from gazettextra.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
‘Wolfwalkers’ wraps a story of a unique friendship around troubling Irish history [Los Angeles Times :: BC-MOVIE-WOLFWALKERS:LA]
In the 1650s Ireland of “Wolfwalkers,” a city girl from England and a feral “wolfwalker” child become friends as an Oliver Cromwell-type Lord Protector tries to wipe out all wolves in the country. But Irish co-directors Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart have a lot to say under cover of that animated-adventure plot.
“Cromwell viewed Ireland as being a wild land full of rebels that lived in the forest, ready to attack, and there were wolves there. And the fact that the Irish people believed in the stories of wolf people, all these fairies and legends … he would have seen it as another reason to completely ‘civilize’ this country,” Stewart said.