Robin Hodge

Sologne, a brown male alpaca, is one of the stars of a French movie shot this summer at Postporden, twenty kilometres north of Brest in Brittany. The title of the film is King Guillaume and its human stars are Florence Foresti and Pierre Richard.
In November 2007 Madame Marie Genevieve Lion, president of Alpaga Developpement, was contacted by a film producer who was looking for an alpaca that could walk on and off the lead following an actor. Many photographs of huacaya and suri alpacas later, Sologne was chosen.
Robin Hodge of Utopian Alpacas takes up the story: ?On the 18th May Madam Lion with her daughter Gabrielle left the their chateau with Sologne and two companion males for the ten hour journey to Brittany stopping at our home on the way to give the animals a rest in one of our fields whilst we all had a meal.
We were invited to watch the filming on the small isle of Presqulle St Laurent which is attached to the mainland by a thin strip of white beach. When we got there we were amazed at the sight of an ancient boat marooned on the rocks, a bridge that had been built, a red telephone box in the sea and more than sixty people working on the set. We thought it was going to be a small film but then were told that three of the five actors are famous in France and that the film was a comedy about five people and an alpaca living on the island and living on what was salvaged from the sea
The alpaca, Sologne, was taking everything in his stride whether standing still on the bridge or walking on the rocks. Every scene was shot five times and like a true pro Sologne waited until the director had finished the scene before he walked away and joined his two other companion alpacas for a wee. It seemed Sologne knew he was a star and always behaved in an aloof manner with the other alpaca boys.?