Director: Anna Kurbatova
A wounded fox cub and a lonely new kid turn out to be exactly what each other needs in My Wild Friend, a gentle Russian family adventure from 2024 built around a friendship that grows in secret. Director Anna Kurbatova keeps the tone warm without losing sight of the real danger closing in around them.
What is My Wild Friend about?
Sasha Menshikov is starting seventh grade in an unfamiliar small town, dropped off by his scientist mother while she leaves for another expedition and he moves in with his aunt Nina. School does not go well; the other kids keep their distance, and Sasha spends most afternoons wandering the surrounding forest alone rather than sitting through another awkward lunch. That routine changes when he finds a fox cub caught in a trap, its leg injured and its family nowhere in sight. Nursing the animal back to health in a hidden dugout deep in the woods gives Sasha something he has been missing since the move: a reason to show up every day and something that depends on him. The arrangement only works as long as it stays secret, though, and Sasha soon learns that local poachers are hunting the same fox for its pelt. What began as a quiet after-school project turns into a race to protect the cub before it is found by people who see it only as a payday.
Cast & crew
Elisey Chuchilin plays Sasha with a quiet, watchful energy suited to a boy who would rather be in the forest than at his own school. Yuliya Aleksandrova and Yuri Kolokolnikov appear as the adults navigating Sasha's new life from a distance, while Maksim Shchyogolev and Mikhail Bashkatov take on the poacher roles that push the story toward its tenser back half, with Olga Smirnova and Evgeniy Okorokov rounding out the small town around them.
Context & significance
My Wild Friend sits comfortably alongside other rural coming-of-age stories about a child bonding with a wild animal, but it leans harder than most into the practical stakes of poaching, giving the friendship real consequences rather than treating the fox as a simple pet stand-in. The small-town Russian setting, with its forests and modest households, gives the film a grounded backdrop rather than a storybook one.
Where & how to watch
My Wild Friend is available on K-Time with a free account login and no separate download needed, making it an easy pick for family movie nights. The platform's Farsi menus and Persian dubbing let Persian-speaking households watch together without anyone having to read subtitles aloud for younger viewers.