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'The Wolfpack' who feature in a documentary about kids growing up in a New York apartment perform various skits to thank the Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy: Youtube/Magnolia Pictures Magnet Releasing
- news.com.au
- 13 Feb 2015
- Entertainment
The Wolfpack tells the story of the Angulo brothers raised in a New York apartment. Source: Supplied
IT SOUNDS like the scene of a Grimm brothers fairytale.
Seven children left inside an apartment for years, their only contact with the outside world coming from rare vists outside the house and movies they watch obsessively. Only this story is true and it happened in modern-day Manhattan. All but one of the siblings still lives at home.
The extraordinary circumstances are the subject of The Wolfpack, a documentary covering the lives of the seven Angulo children who were homeschooled by their parents, Oscar and Susanne, and kept inside their Lower East Side Apartment.
To stave off boredom and loneliness, the six brothers Bhagavan, Govinda, Narayana, Mukunda, Krisna and Jagadesh, as well as sister Visnu, would re-enact their favourite films — from Clerks to The Usual Suspects to The Blair Witch Project — using props from around the house.
Mukunda, Govinda, Bhagavan, Narayana, Jagadisa and Krsna Angulo pose as characters from Reservoir Dogs at Sundance. Picture: Larry Busacca/Getty Images. Source: Getty Images
Director Crystal Moselle befriended the teens and filmed the documentary over a four-year period. Picture: Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP Source: AP
Their lives are the subject of the documentary which recently took home the Grand Jury prize for the genre at Sundance Film Festival. It’s the first feature film from New York director Crystal Moselle, 34, who befriended the brothers after a chance encounter on one of the rare times they left the house — this time dressed as characters from Reservoir Dogs.
“I am so lucky to have been on First Avenue that day at that precise moment,” she told The New York Times.
“I felt like I discovered a long-lost tribe from the Amazon.”
Ms Moselle chased down the brothers and started showing them her cameras. It eventually morphed into a friendship and she visited them at home over a four-year period to film the documentary which includes access to their father Oscar, a Peruvian Hare Krishna who is portrayed as struggling with alcohol and fears of the ‘contamination’ of his children if they are to leave home.
According to publicists for the film, the daughter Visnu has a genetic disorder which is why she rarely features, Buzzfeed reports.
Crystal Moselle
Crystal Moselle with the brothers. Picture: Larry Busacca/Getty Images. Source: Getty Images
“I came in to this story right when they started coming out of the house,” she told the Sundance Institute.
“Their father had, I believe, a lot of fear of the outside world and he wanted them to have their own way of raising their kids.”
“Everything was pretty much kept within the household. What’s so fascinating about them is they really have created their own world through their interpretation of the films they’ve watched.”
“They do these re-enactments that are like spot on. They'll have different characters from different films and make a new story.
‘They’re reflecting on the experiences they’ve had and bringing that into their own art form.”
The Wolfpack
The film took out the top documentary prize at Sundance. Pictured, Crystal Moselle and Megan Delaney (left) with Winona Ryder and Sundance Film Festival Senior Programmer David Courier. Picture: Photo by Clayton Chase/Getty Images for Sundance. Source: Getty Images
The film focuses on their attempts at recreating mainstream movies and covers the fallout when one of the brothers, Mukunda, 15, breaks out of home and wanders the streets before being picked up by authorities.
But while The Wolfpack received widespread acclaim, it has also raised questions about the psychological aspect of keeping the children confined to the house and why authorities did not intervene earlier. One critic said the film “isn’t the investigative work warranted by a case this bizarre”, with little known about how the teens came to leave the house and what they make of their newfound celebrity.
Ms Moselle has said she wanted to stay “neutral” on the subject and for her, the film is a way of exposing the brothers to the art form they love so much.
“These boys are so incredibly passionate about movies and for them to get the opportunity to go to Sundance, it’s their dream come true. To experience all this and be around other filmmakers and actors, the people that create their dreams, it’s pretty fabulous I would say,” she said.
The Wolfpack is set for release in the second half of 2015
