Says one young hunter: You grab the tail and tire it out until you might grab the head.
His narrative work included the Venice picAre We Not Catsand the HBO seriesChillin Island.
DEADLINE:One of your characters says you loathe snakes, but you cant look away from them.
The Python HuntCourtesy of Artists Equity
How did you find this snake tale?
XANDER ROBIN: I grew up in South Florida, and knew about the invasive reptiles in South Florida.
Its been a thing.
The Python HuntCourtesy of Artists Equity
Im a filmmaker in general, not just a documentary filmmaker.
I was trying to write narrative scripts about the reptile trade, the exotic pet trade.
He didnt feel like he would be right to direct it and thought I should.
I thought it was mostly professionals going out hunting pythons.
I thought I was more interested in the pythons than the people back then.
But I became more interested in the people, after experiencing the competition.
DEADLINE:How many Pythons did you personally capture in your year in the competition?
DEADLINE:Why did it become such an exercise in futility for you?
They dont shine that much.
And also, no one really knows what theyre doing.
I was like, are there really that many pythons out there?
He was flirting with those opposite views at the time, which had developed as we filmed with him.
I became interested in what was true and what was not true, and what the government was saying.
And of course, we all hate snakes.
We have since Genesis.
DEADLINE:The sharks of the land.
ROBIN: Sharks get a bad rap too.
How concerned were you these people were going to get hurt?
In this day and age, you shouldnt ever laugh away safety concerns.
But I think sometimes because of the propaganda, safety concerns get a little overblown.
Everyone wanted to hire medics and all this stuff.
DEADLINE:Any close calls?
ROBIN: We did see a ton of venomous snakes.
I did walk into the water in the middle of the night, and that was scary.
But you saw in the film, the Cottonmouth scene was scary.
Wed had a whole safety presentation that day.
That was the first day of the challenge.
It was a close call.
Im glad we didnt have to go to the hospital.
We had a whole protocol though.
We took it very, very seriously, is all Im trying to say.
But it was an inherently dangerous project.
DEADLINE:Some of these python hunters are so compelling.
She sees one early and is captivated by its beauty, and you thought maybe shed back off.
ROBIN: Its such an interesting thing with reptiles and invasive species.
Theyre also the same ones that are willing to go out there and do it.
Where did you come out in that regard?
Is the Python situation as bad as they make it out to be, strangling all the other wildlife?
And the media wants you to believe its all the Pythons fault.
I dont really think life is ever that simple.
I found the narratives that other people were saying were interesting.
I dont know if all of them are true.
Maybe its a lot of development.
And maybe all of that has also led to some of the population collapse.
And also because the government gets their own funding for this, they want to seem like the heroes.
So they dont want to say its their own fault, why the animals are gone.
They want to blame a snake and then create a program to remove the snake.
Not to say that the snake is innocent.
I guess its innocent that it didnt ask to be there, but it is doing some damage.
And so this hunt, 209 are caught and killed.
Does that make any difference in solving the problem or is it propaganda?
ROBIN: The Python competition definitely doesnt do much damage.
So the Python challenge is basically a publicity stunt.
ROBIN: We love Toby.
We were in the car with him, saying, are you good?
And hes like, no, Im good.
He just kept moving the snake, basically giving himself some slack every now and then.
But yeah, we were just happy that he caught a snake.
DEADLINE:It bit him, more than once it looked like.
Over 10 feet long, I think those bites hurt.
