‘The Python Hunt’: How Ben Affleck and Matt Damon’s Artists Equity Helped Turn a Snake-Hunting Contest Into a SXSW Doc Hit

‘The Python Hunt’: How Ben Affleck and Matt Damon’s Artists Equity Helped Turn a Snake-Hunting Contest Into a SXSW Doc Hit

“The Python Hunt” is that rare case where an indie film easily raises financing, grabs upbeat response from audiences and critics at a film festival, wins a prize, and launches multiple sales bids. After a rousing response at the big Alamo Drafthouse Lamar screening at SXSW, this colorful, populist portrait of a swath of python hunters — and by extension, America — could hit a commercial nerve.

Here’s how the filmmakers did it.

Work with your friends.

Filmmaker Lance…