Special Jury Award Winner – 2025 SXSW Film Festival
The Python Hunt is an “irresistible cocktail of vigilantism, competition and nature conservation” (Stephen Saito, The Moveable Fest). This entertaining film about Floridian life is also the first ever documentary to be made about competitive python hunting. Every year, the Florida government calls upon the general public to compete in an invasive python removal contest in the Everglades in an attempt to save the threatened ecosystem. The film follows the conquests of several of the contest’s more memorable competitors.
While focusing on the plight of these python hunters would make for a thrilling enough story, The Python Hunt has more on its mind, including a critical viewpoint on the overall impact of the hunt. Not content to merely find amusement in the antics of some Florida-based eccentrics, director Xander Robin and producer Lance Oppenheim (Ren Faire, Spermworld, Some Kind of Heaven) offer a humane look at the lives of several individuals who enroll in the Challenge for various reasons (to impress others? To gain a following on social media? To prove something about their masculinity?), as well as one memorable character who is struggling to find a new lease on life after being blacklisted from participating.
