THE PYTHON HUNT Trailer: Award-Winning Documentary Chronicles Snake Hunters in the Everglades
Winner of a Special Jury Award at last year’s SXSW, Xander Robin’s directorial debut, The Python Hunt, is a documentary that has to be seen to be believed. Set in Florida’s Everglades, it follows the locals who participate in the annual Everglades Python Hunt. Founded by the Florida government, this annual tradition is an effort to wipe out the invasive Burmese python population, which is causing harm to the local ecosystem. Each of the participants has experience in snake hunting, to some degree.
Robin said in a statement to the press, “I grew up in South Florida, thinking the lizards and snakes scurrying past my feet were a normal everyday occurrence. These days, the iguanas outside my front door are legal to shoot and invasive pythons have apparently swallowed an entire ecosystem whole… The Python Hunt is about the thousands of other people who showed up with the same idea, from amateurs convinced they could fix an unsolvable problem of our own making, to the gladesmen who watched wildlife disappear long before the pythons arrived. Out there, everyone has a theory about what’s really happening; about the snakes, about the state, even about the ecosystem itself. I love our whole cast for different reasons and, as we spent long days and nights together in one of the most beautiful and maddening places on earth, I was drawn to how each of their perspectives could be convincing. I still haven’t caught a snake, but thankfully for all of us, our cast had better luck…”
Oscilloscope Laboratories will release The Python Hunt at NYC’s Angelika Film Center on Friday, May 8 (featuring Q&A screenings with the director), before expanding to further cities.
As the official synopsis reads:
In an attempt to save the threatened ecosystem, the Florida government hosts an annual competition to remove invasive pythons from the Everglades. For ten grueling nights, python-mania overtakes the ‘glades as an eclectic group of amateur hunters contends with unforgiving terrain, aggressive nocturnal creatures, and their own desires and demons that push them into the swamp, searching for slithering glory.
Check out the trailer and poster below.
