Trophy
Feature length film Completed 2017
Director
Shaul Schwarz
Doc Society helped with
Production
Runtime: 108 minutes
Africa's endangered species is big business. Heavily armed, American tourists on safari dream to shoot a lion, an elephant or one of the other 'big five', as idealistic environmentalists trying to protect. But the reality is incredibly more complex, is an unpleasant truth that the hardy 'Trophy' reveals a unique journalistic overview. Right from the first scene you have to repeatedly revise one's own view of both big game hunting and patchy human morality. For it is indeed true when South African John Hume claims that he saves his rhinos from poachers by themselves to save their horns? Or when the tearful hunter Phillip Glass says he feels spiritually connected with the animals he kills? The scenes from an arms fair for safari tourists in Las Vegas'll get one's political mind to a boil, but not even here is really as simple as it tries to look like. Instructors Shaul Schwarz ( 'Narco Cultura') and Christina Clusiau has created a film that is much larger than his subject. And it's told, so you sit right on the edge of the chair.
Crew
Shaul Schwarz
Director
Shaul Schwarz is an Israeli documentary film director, cinematographer and award-wining photojournalist. His feature-length documentary Narco Cultura premiered at Sundance in 2013 and screened at film festivals worldwide including Berlin International Film Festival and Hot Docs. He has shot and directed content for TNT, Discovery Channel, History Channel, and CNN. He is also a regular photographic contributor to TIME Magazine and National Geographic.
Schwarz and Clusiau also come across as glib storytellers, cutting impatiently between several different stories and presenting them in bite-size chunks, as in a TV news broadcast.
Chicago Reader
March 25, 2020
Trophy should be mandatory viewing in spite of its narrative presentation.
Spectrum Culture
Nov. 20, 2017
The film gives voice to the commercial case for breeding and hunting, which feels at odds with the emotive way these kills are positioned.
Observer (UK)
Oct. 19, 2017
If 'Blue Planet II' is a bit too touchy-feely for you, this hard-hitting doc should do the trick.
Time Out
Nov. 17, 2017
A powerful film, but also sometimes very tough to watch.
Little White Lies
Nov. 17, 2017
Shaul Schwarz and Christina Clusiau's disturbing documentary digs into the murk of the African big-game trade with candour and even-handedness.
The Times (UK)
Nov. 17, 2017
It's a film to raise your blood pressure.
Guardian
Nov. 16, 2017
Trophy doesn't tell you which side to pick; it's content to show you what they are.
San Diego Reader
Oct. 14, 2017
To its credit, "Trophy" neither shames its subjects nor offers an easy solution.
Washington Post
Sept. 28, 2017
Trophy presents the very definition of making a deal with the devil.
Toronto Star
Sept. 22, 2017
