Emily Blunt

resembles a sleeve of shuttlecocks at the premiere of “A Quiet Place,”

comes their parent, keeping them safe and even bottlefeeding them during their vulnerable early years and then teaching them how to eat and live in their natural habitat as they grow. He sets them free after about two years. His first successfully released black bear is named Squirty. She’s 22 years old and still maintains a close connection to Kilham.

“Ben’s relationship with Squirty is really limited to Ben,” Fellman says of the pair’s frequent hugs and other physical closeness. “We were never out of the car when we’re working with Squirty. Even when we’re filming, the camera is set up remotely and we’re in the back of Ben’s truck.”

Despite Kilham’s decades of experience, the work can be scrappy.

“You don’t work with bears without getting bitten by bears a lot. Because that’s how bears communicate,” Fellman says. “It’s not necessarily an aggressive action. That’s how they tell each other things. It’s like if you’re a fireman, you’re gonna get singed. It’s part of the job.”

Hou Rong, a leading Chinese panda researcher, sought Kilham’s guidance and got him involved in her fledgling program. In the film, Hou hopes to have the same kind of success with an adult female panda named Qian Qian, whom we observe grow and develop over the course of three years with the help of a biologist named Jake Owens.

Pandas may look sweet, but they’re still dangerous creatures.

The crew — which could number as many as 50 people — were always at least 100 feet away from Qian Qian. When shooting the panda cubs, however, it was all cuddles.

“One of them wandered over and climbed up on me, and that was pretty amazing,” Fellman says. “You know, we’re really not supposed to pick them up or anything like that, but this one just came up and climbed up on me. There was nothing I could do but enjoy the moment.”