Mia and the White Lion
Short description
Mia and the White Lion follows a young girl who moves from London to South Africa with her family when her parents take over a lion-breeding farm. Mia struggles to adjust to her new life and feels isolated until she bonds with Charlie, a rare white lion cub born on the farm. Over the next three years the two grow up together, but when Charlie reaches adulthood he becomes a danger to visitors, and Mia learns that her father intends to sell him. She decides to flee with the lion and find him a safe home, and the pair set out across the South African savannah.
Gilles de Maistre directed from a screenplay by William Davies and Prune de Maistre. Daniah De Villiers plays Mia, with Mélanie Laurent and Langley Kirkwood as her parents, Ryan Mac Lennan as her brother, and Lionel Newton and Lillian Dube in supporting roles. The film was a German, French and South African co-production made for about 10 million dollars, and it took roughly 36 million dollars worldwide.
It was the first of several animal-centred adventure films de Maistre went on to direct, followed by The Wolf and the Lion, Autumn and the Black Jaguar, Moon the Panda and The Desert Child. On IMDb it holds 6.5 out of 10 from around 7,000 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 7.2 from 932 votes. A critics' score of 6.9 from 17 reviews places it close to the audience ratings.
What's left behind the scenes
- The filmmakers rejected over 300 applicants for the role, which was ultimately played by Dania De Villiers. During filming, the girl and the lion named Thor spent a long time in close proximity to each other. The filmmakers claim that the most difficult thing was not finding a girl for the lead role, but finding parents who would agree to let their child film with a predator.
- When the director came up with the idea for the film, he consulted with specialist Kevin Richardson and asked if it was possible to film a child with a lion. He was told that it was impossible, and that the only way to ensure the child's safety was for the child and the lion to grow up together. This process would take three years for the lion – too long for filming. The director found Dania De Villiers in South Africa, arranged for her to grow up with a white lion cub, and filmed the movie over 2.5 years, from May 2015 to December 2017. The other actors flew in for filming as needed.
- Director Gilles de Maistre considered filming a sequel, but abandoned the idea, as he would have had to rebuild the friendship between the heroine and the lion from scratch.
- Filming went smoothly until the lion turned two years old, after which the film crew worked in cages, as lions enter adolescence at that age.
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