Synopsis

“The Hunter Gracchus” is a short film I shot over three days a couple summers ago. The film is based – verbally – on the short story of the same name by Franz Kafka. The settings I had available and the actors I wanted in the film are not ‘the same’ as Kafka’s story – visually – but were, I thought, decent choices, nonetheless. I was the only ‘crew-member’ and I borrowed a Sony mini DV camera, the model of which I can’t remember, but it was in the $1500 - $2000 range. In Kafka’s story, a Hunter (Gracchus, played by my brother Brian) falls to his death while out hunting a ‘chamois.’ The Boatman (played by my cousin Bernie), who was to ‘ferry him to the other side’ made a mistake, though, of some kind, so the Hunter is doomed to sail all the waters of the world – forever. Stuck in ‘purgatory’ or not of this world or the next or any other. He is perplexed by this because, as he says, “I was a Hunter. Is that something bad?” However, the Burgomaster of Riva (roughly, the ‘mayor’), is told by a dove one night that the Hunter…