EXCLUSIVE: French director Gilles de Maistre’s upcoming film The Desert Baby has offered to a slew of territories for Studiocanal, following its gross sales launch on the European Movie Market in February.  

Presently in post-production for a 2026 launch, the drama retells the true story of a teen raised by ostriches within the Sahara. 

First offers embrace to Baltics (ACME), Benelux (Distri7), Jap Europe (Prorom), ex-Yugoslavia (Karantanija), Indonesia (PT Prima), Israel (United King), Italy (Rai), Switzerland (Ascot Elite) and Turkey (ATV). 

The Desert Baby follows Maistre’s hit Autumn and the Black Jaguar, which grossed $30M on the worldwide field workplace, and upcoming launch Moon The Panda, which hits French cinemas in April. 

It follows 14-year-old Solar who publishes a narrative impressed by a bedtime story advised by her late grandfather a couple of youngster referred to as Hadara, who’s saved by a gaggle of ostriches when he turns into separated from his household in a storm, and is then raised within the desert amid a bunch of untamed animals, together with his finest pal, a desert fox. 

When she is invited to the Sahara by a local people who has heard about her guide, she meets Kharouba, a Nomad woman of her personal age, and realizes there could also be way more to Hadara than only a character in a bedtime story. 

As with most of Maistre’s earlier options, which additionally embrace The Wolf and the Lion and Mia and the White Lion, the The Desert Baby includes working with youngsters and real-life animals, on this case ostriches and younger Fennec foxes. 

The film is produced by Studiocanal and de Maistre’s Mai-Juin Productions, a Mediawan firm. Studiocanal is dealing with worldwide gross sales and also will launch the movie theatrically in France.