“The Python Hunt” is that uncommon case the place an indie movie simply raises financing, grabs upbeat response from audiences and critics at a movie competition, wins a prize, and launches a number of gross sales bids. After a rousing response on the huge Alamo Drafthouse Lamar screening at SXSW, this colourful, populist portrait of a swath of python hunters — and by extension, America — might hit a industrial nerve.
Right here’s how the filmmakers did it.
Work with your pals.
Filmmaker Lance Oppenheim (“Some Sort of Heaven,” “Ren Faire”) introduced an concept to his outdated Florida buddy Xander Robin (“Are We Not Cats”). They’d been making an attempt to make a film collectively for years, and Robin had labored on his personal movie concerning the pet commerce within the Florida Everglades that by no means obtained off the bottom. The idea: cowl the annual Python Problem, a contest that pays $10,000 to the one hunter in 1,000 who brings in essentially the most Burmese snakes, that are destroying wildlife within the huge swampy ecosystem. The one predator in a position to preserve the numbers of those non-poisonous stranglers down: people. And so they’re not doing an excellent job.
Oppenheim thought of making the nonfiction characteristic himself however advised Robin: “‘You’ll be a significantly better match for this topic and the world,’” Oppenheim advised IndieWire over Zoom. “It was a enjoyable, spectacular voyage into the night time that we had collectively.”
Oppenheim additionally introduced in one other pal, Dani Bernfeld. She had labored with him for 3 years on 2024 doc collection “Ren Faire” (HBO) on the Safdie brothers’ Elara Footage and now serves as artistic president at Artists Fairness, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck’s two-year-old independently financed manufacturing firm. “The Python Hunt” is their third documentary characteristic, after U2’s “Kiss the Future,” concerning the Siege of Sarajevo, and Jennifer Lopez’s “The Biggest Love Story By no means Instructed.”
Producer Lauren Chaffee additionally labored with Bernfeld on Elara’s Max documentary “Love Has Gained: The Cult of Mom God.” Two cinematographers (David Bolen and Matt Clegg) had been additionally buddies, in addition to the 2 second unit administrators (Harrison Fishman and Emery Matson) and editor Max Allman (“Ren Faire”).
“It was numerous totally different folks working round in the course of the night time within the Everglades,” stated Oppenheim. “Most of it got here from us all eager to do one thing collectively as buddies. Weirdly, it felt like a summer season camp atmosphere, despite the fact that it was harmful and there have been alligators swimming round. It felt such as you had been 1,000,000 miles away from actuality, like a fantasia, all of the sleepless nights of ready for one thing to occur.”
Refine your pitch.
The filmmakers pitched to Artists Fairness the Three Cs: a personality movie, a creature movie, and a contest. “Because the movie was progressing,” stated Oppenheim, “the primary two grew to become extra vital to us. The competitors grew to become the setting and never the story. You may have this nice world, however you wish to find the humanity on this planet moderately than specializing in the extra salacious particulars inside it.”
Robin discovered two topics by getting into the Python Hunt himself earlier than the film was greenlit. The footage he shot there helped promote the pitch to Artists Fairness.
Decide the suitable characters to comply with.
Robin labored with a Florida casting director who had competed within the Python Problem and focuses on road casting. They reached out to on-line snake fanatics who would possibly be part of the hunt. “That led us to Toby, who’s a author and was taking a gaggle out,” Robin stated. “We had been searching for individuals who would have a unique perspective on the finish of the hunt than at first.”
Be open to what’s taking place on the bottom.
The unique pitch to Artists Fairness was targeted on the competitors. However as Robin and his group filmed for 10 nights within the Everglades, he discovered extra concerning the idiosyncratic people from everywhere in the nation chasing the pythons, that are notoriously difficult to catch. He found out that the competitors, which yields about 200 lifeless pythons out of between 100 to 300,000 pythons within the Everglades (per the Florida Fish and Wildlife Fee), is actually a PR stunt. Florida spends hundreds of thousands yearly battling the predator through employed bounty hunters.
Discover a supportive house.
Artists Fairness’s Damon, Bernfeld, and doc head Gillian Brown gave notes and supported “The Python Hunt” all through. “They had been defending the inventive integrity of the film,” stated Oppenheim, “and telling us, ‘make the film you wish to make, and if you happen to make it as nice as it may probably be, then folks will come. Don’t attempt to retrofit the film into some form of industrial requirements.’”
Past that, Oppenheim credit the corporate with truthful compensation for the filmmaking group, which is uncommon exterior HBO or FX, he stated. “The crew had been being compensated with an actual wage, versus simply ready and hoping and praying for that to come back a bit of later within the course of.”
“Matt and Ben see worth in documentaries,” stated Bernfeld. “It grows from real artistic curiosity. We are going to proceed to prioritize and champion nice tales and nice storytellers.”
Don’t choose.
When Robin wrapped capturing for the night time, he’d hang around together with his topics. “They grew to become shut buddies of his,” stated Oppenheim. “There may be battle and human drama, however he efficiently navigated it with out presenting it judgmentally. We all the time noticed it as a black comedy like ‘Palms on a Exhausting Physique.’ We might present this to somebody in the course of the nation who might watch it and perceive it.”
The hunters had been pissed off by the lengthy hours they needed to put in earlier than nabbing a python. Professional python hunter Toby was decided to ship a snake for gin-drinking octogenarian Anne to pith, and he did. The big python strangles his left arm as he drives his truck again to the motel, however Toby delivers it to her. “She needed to have an journey,” stated Oppenheim. “There have been some pent-up emotions there. For any particular person, there are causes for eager to catch the snake and put off it. And it’s a distraction or a type of escapism from the issues of their life. Everybody’s working away from one thing and hoping they’re going to seek out it in the course of the Everglades.”
Bernfeld agrees: “We’re all searching for a way to connect with different folks, and that’s how these folks select to do this,” she stated. “The magic zone is when you’ll find your views and opinions being challenged and adjusted.” Added Brown: “Xander made house to let voices typically unheard or stereotyped come by in an genuine approach.”
Robin stayed open to the characters as they offered their varied peccadillos. One hirsute San Francisco common, Richard, stored altering his hair and shaving his face over the course of the shoot. “It’s not good to censor folks,” stated Robin. “it’s good to point out the great and the dangerous. It feels worse while you’re sanding them down. All of them have fascinating attributes.”
Play the suitable competition.
SXSW was the suitable competition launch for this film, because the Texas viewers responded enthusiastically. “It’s an immersive, experiential movie. When the snake jumps out, you soar as an viewers member,” stated Brown. “It’s a wierd solid of characters that feels bigger than life and stranger than fiction. It performs otherwise than many docs play. It’s a theatrical cinematic expertise.”
WME and UTA are promoting the movie, which has curiosity from a number of patrons. Whether or not it turns right into a midnight cult film or sells to a streamer is the query. “We’re nimble and open and in a position to work in a big selection of fashions,” stated Bernfeld, “be it streaming and theatrical, financing, co-financing, regardless of the case could also be. It might play with all kinds of companions. There’s no set approach for us to do issues. A part of having a completely impartial studio is to have the ability to take a look at each challenge individually and determine what’s greatest for that challenge.”
Extra Artists Fairness docs are within the pipeline — nonetheless to be introduced.
“The Python Hunt” premiered on the 2025 SXSW Movie & TV Pageant and is at the moment searching for U.S. distribution.