Not long before World War I, in a French Alpine town near the Italian border, a pack of slaughtered wolves is delivered to local taxidermist Leon (Patrick Chesnais). A surviving black cub comes down from the mountains looking for his family, and is saved from discovery and certain death by Leon’s young daughter Angele, who releases him back into the wild. The Great War comes and goes, making local foundry owners the Garcins rich. Family patriarch Albert Garcin (Michel Galabru), who happens to be Angele’s godfather, has given a free lifetime’s lease of a shack in the hills to a gypsy woman (played in flashbacks by Elisa Tovati in which she’s seen, literally, having dances with wolves on stage). Her son Guiseppe (Stefano Accorsi), who appears to be slightly mentally handicapped, guards the wolves he’s befriended up there, especially the black pack leader he calls Carbone.
Laetitia Casta
as Angèle
Jean-Paul Rouve
as Émile Garcin
Stefano Accorsi
as Giuseppe
Miglen Mirtchev
as Zhormov
Patrick Chesnais
as Léon Amblard
Michel Galabru
as Albert Garcin
Lorànt Deutsch
as Anatole
Didier Bénureau
as Jacob, le louvetier
Urbain Cancelier
as Le médecin
Laurent Gamelon
as Le maréchal-ferrand
Jean-Michel Ribes
as Le directeur de l'école vétérinaire
Yves Gasc
as Le notaire
