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Natural Born Hunters is an ethnographic film that follows a group of city lawyers on a recreational hunting trip to a small village in the West of Russia. The film begins at their ultimate destination — a place called Nizy, where a few locals manage a vast area of hunting grounds. The difference between the environments of rural Nizy and urban St Petersburg (where the lawyers come from) is striking. It appears to only be matched by the difference in the lifestyles of the people that populate the two places. Viewers are invited to reflect on these differences (or lack thereof) by witnessing the hunting trip through the eyes of the filmmaker.
By immersing itself in the activity of hunting, Natural Born Hunters explores issues of class, (toxic) masculinity and man’s complex relationship with nature. It outlines a rare instance of male sociality that — while potentially problematic from an ethical standpoint — allows for a temporary transcendence of socio-economic and political divisions present in contemporary Russia. Last but not least, the film invites audiences to reflect on the very processes of looking and “shooting”, which are as central to the activity of hunting as they are to the wider project of ethnographic filmmaking.
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