The Wolfpack

Meet the Angulos: seven siblings imprisoned for most of their childhoods who learnt much of life’s lessons from film and TV; the subjects of this captivating documentary.

In 2010 filmmaker Crystal Moselle befriended a group of six strange-looking brothers, taken to wandering Manhattan as a group, all wearing the same sunglasses and waist-long hair. As Moselle chatted more with them she unearthed their incredible story: that they’d been incarcerated in their father’s apartment for most of their lives until recently defying his orders and emerging unto the world.

With their limited social vocabulary almost entirely gleaned from watching movies – their only outlet to the outside world – the Angulo brothers make for fascinating, charming and endlessly watchable documentary subjects. Despite the disturbing nature of their upbringing, The Wolfpack is a life-affirming story of humanity’s essential longing for freedom. And it’s also an unlikely testament to the language of cinema as a unifying social bond.