“The Python Hunt” is the rare case where an indie film Easily raises funding, develops optimistic response from audiences and critics at a film festival, wins a prize, and launches several sales bids. After a arousing response to Big Alamo Drafthouse Lamar -screening at SXSWThis colorful, populist portrait of a string of Python hunter – and by extension, America – could hit a commercial nerve.
This is how the filmmakers did.
Work with your friends. Film maker Lance Oppenheim (“Some kind of heaven”, “pure faire”) brought an idea to his old Florida mate Xander Robin (“Are we not cats”). They had been trying to make a movie together for several years, and Robin had worked on his own film about the pet trade in Florida Everglades that never came up from the ground. The concept: Cover the annual Python ChallengeA competition that pays $ 10,000 to One Hunter in 1,000 that brings with them the most Burmese snakes, which destroys wild animals in the huge swampy ecosystem. The only predator that can keep the number of these non-inducing stranglers down: people. And they don’t do a good job.
Oppenheim considered doing the nonfiction feature yourself but told Robin: “” You would be much better fit for this topic and the world, “said Oppenheim to IndieWire over Zoom.” It was a fun, spectacular trip to the night we had together. “
Oppenheim also brought in another friend, Dani Bernfeld. She had worked with him for three years at the 2024 DOC series “pure faire” (HBO) at Safdie Brothers Elara pictures and now serves as creative president at ArtistryMatt Damon and Ben Affleck’s two -year -old independently funded production companies. “The python hunt“Is their third documentary function, after U2’s” Kiss the Future “, about Siege of Sarajevo, and Jennifer Lopez’s” The Greatest Love Story Never Store. “
Producer Lauren Chaffee also worked with Bernfeld at Elara’s Max documentary “Love has won: The Cult of Mother Good.” Two kinematographers (David Bolen and Matt Clegg) were also friends, as were the two other unit directors (Harrison Fishman and Emery Matson) and editor Max Allman (“pure faire”).
“There were many different people running around in the middle of the Everglades,” Oppenheim said. “Most things came from us that everyone wanted to do something together as friends. Strange, it felt like a summer camp environment, although it was dangerous and it was alligators swam around. It felt like you were a million miles from reality, like a fantasy, all sleepless nights with waiting for something to happen. ”
Refine your pitch. The filmmakers struck Artists Equity The Three CS: A Character Film, A Creature Film and A Competition. “As the film continued,” said Oppenheim, “the first two became more important to us. The competition became the attitude and not the story. You have this big world, but you want to find humanity in the world rather than focus on the more furry details within it.”
Robin found two topics by entering Python Hunt himself before the movie was greenlit. The pictures he shot there helped sell the plan to Artists Equity.
Choose the correct sign to follow. Robin worked with a Florida -casting director who had competed in Python Challenge and specialized in street joy. They were enough for online snake fanatics who can join the hunt. “It led us to Toby, who is a writer and took out a group,” Robin said. “We were looking for people who would have a different perspective at the end of the hunt than at the beginning.”
Be open to what’s happening on the ground. The original pitch to the artist’s equity focused on the competition. But when Robin and his team filmed for ten nights in Everglades, he learned more about the idiosyncratic people from all over the country who chased Pythons, which is notoriously challenging to capture. He calculated that the competition, which gives about 200 dead python of between 100 to 300,000 python in Everglades (Per Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission), is essentially a PR stunt. Florida spends millions every year fights against the predator through employees bounty hunters.
Find a supportive home. Artists Equity’s Damon, Bernfeld and Doc Manager Gillian Brown gave notes and supported “The Python Hunt” all the time. “The artistic integrity of the protected film,” said Oppenheim, “and told us,” make the movie you want to do, and if you do it as well as it can be, people will come. Do not try to retrieve the film to any kind of commercial standards. “”
In addition, Oppenheim credit the company with fair compensation for the filmmaking, which is rare outside HBO or FX, he said. “The crew was compensated with a real salary, compared to just waiting and hoping and praying for it to come a little later in the process.”
“Matt and legs see value in documentaries,” Bernfeld said. “It grows with genuine creative interest. We will continue to prioritize and advance fantastic stories and fantastic storytellers. ”
Don’t judge. When Robin wrapped shooting for the night, he would spend time with his subjects. “They became close friends of Hans,” Oppenheim said. “There are conflicts and human drama, but he successfully navigated without presenting it judgment. We always saw it as a black comedy that “happens on a hard body.” We could show this to someone in the middle of the country who could look at it and understand it. ”
The hunters were frustrated by the long hours they had to put in before they nabbed a python. Pro Python Hunter Toby was determined to deliver a snake for Gin-drinking Octogue Anne to Pith, and he did. The huge Python suffocates his left arm when he drives his truck back to the motel, but Toby delivers it to her. “She wanted an adventure,” Oppenheim said. “There were some urged emotions there. For all people, there are reasons for wanting to catch the snake and abolish it. And it is a distraction or a form of escapism from the problems in their lives. Everyone runs away from something and hopes they will find it in the middle of Everglades. “
Bernfeld agrees: “We all look for some way to connect to other people, and that’s how these people choose to do it,” she said. “The magic zone is when you can find your perspectives and opinions that are challenged and changed.” Added Brown: “Xander made room to let votes sometimes unmatched or stereotypes come through in an authentic way.”
Robin stayed open to the characters when they presented their various peccadillos. A hirsute San Francisco Regular, Richard, continued to change hair and shaved his face during photography. “It’s not good to censor people,” Robin said. “It’s good to show the good and the bad. It feels worse when you grind them. They all have interesting attributes. ”
Play the right festival. SXSW was the right festival launch for this movie, which the Texas audience answered enthusiastically. “It’s an engrossing, experience film. When the snake jumps out, you jump as an audience member, ”said Brown. “It is a strange role of characters that feel greater than life and the stranger than fiction. It plays differently than many documents play. It is a theatrical film experience. “
WME and UTA sell the film, which has interest from several buyers. Whether it turns into a midnight cult film or sells into a streamer is the question. “We are flexible and open and can work in a wide range of models,” said Bernfeld, “whether it is streaming and theater, financing, co -financing, whatever the case can be. It can play with a wide range of partners. There is no way for us to do things. Part of having a completely independent studio is to be able to look at every project
More artists’ share documents are in the pipeline – will still be announced.
“The Python Hunt” premiered at the 2025 SXSW Film & TV Festival and is currently seeking US distribution.
