''The Truffle Hunters'' is a 2020

documentary film A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...

directed and produced by Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw that follows a group of aging men and their dogs as they hunt in the woods for a prized quarry—the

Alba ''Alba'' ( , ) is the Scottish Gaelic name for Scotland. It is also, in English-language historiography, used to refer to the polity of Picts and Scots united in the ninth century as the Kingdom of Alba, until it developed into the Kingd ...

truffle A truffle is the Sporocarp (fungi), fruiting body of a subterranean ascomycete fungus, one of the species of the genus ''Tuber (fungus), Tuber''. More than one hundred other genera of fungi are classified as truffles including ''Geopora'', ''P ...

Luca Guadagnino Luca Guadagnino (; born 10 August 1971) is an Italian film director and producer. His films are characterized by their emotional complexity, eroticism, and lavish visuals. Guadagnino has received numerous accolades, including a Silver Lion, alon ...

, under his

Frenesy Film Company Frenesy Film Company S.r.l. is an Italian film production company founded by Luca Guadagnino. History Luca Guadagnino founded Frenesy Film Company in 2012. Initially, the company was founded to produce short films for fashion houses including Sa ...

banner, is one of the film's many executive producers. The film had its world premiere at the

Sundance Film Festival The Sundance Film Festival is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with 423,234 combined in-person and online viewership in 2023. The festival has acted ...

on January 30, 2020, and was released in theaters on March 5, 2021, by

Sony Pictures Classics Sony Pictures Classics Inc. is an American arthouse film production and distribution company that is a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment. It was founded in 1992 by former Orion Classics heads Michael Barker, Tom Bernard and Marcie Bloo ...

. It received positive reviews from film critics.

Synopsis

A group of aging men and their dogs hunt in the woods in

Northern Italy Northern Italy (, , ) is a geographical and cultural region in the northern part of Italy. The Italian National Institute of Statistics defines the region as encompassing the four Northwest Italy, northwestern Regions of Italy, regions of Piedmo ...

for a prized quarry—the Alba truffle.

Release

The film had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 30, 2020. Shortly thereafter,

acquired distribution rights to the film for $1.5 million. It was set to screen at the

Cannes Film Festival The Cannes Film Festival (; ), until 2003 called the International Film Festival ('), is the most prestigious film festival in the world. Held in Cannes, France, it previews new films of all genres, including documentaries, from all around ...

and the

Telluride Film Festival The Telluride Film Festival (TFF) is a film festival held annually in Telluride, Colorado, during Labor Day, Labor Day weekend (the first Monday in September). The 51st Telluride Film Festival, 51st edition took place on August 30–September ...

prior to their cancellations due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, and it did screen at the

Toronto International Film Festival The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the most prestigious and largest publicly attended film festivals in the world. Founded in 1976, the festival takes place every year in early September. The organi ...

and the

New York Film Festival The New York Film Festival (NYFF) is a film festival held every fall in New York City, presented by Film at Lincoln Center. Founded in 1963 by Richard Roud and Amos Vogel with the support of Lincoln Center president William Schuman, NYFF i ...

, on September 18 and on October 5, 2020, respectively. Dweck and Kershaw had conversations about the film at a number of film festivals. Sony released the film in the United States on March 5, 2021; it had previously been scheduled to be released on December 25, 2020 and March 12, 2021.

BBC Four BBC Four is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It was launched on 2 March 2002

's '' Storyville'' broadcast ''The Truffle Hunters'' in the U.K.

Reception

On the

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews and ratings of products and services, such as films, books, video games, music, software, hardware, or cars. This system then stores the reviews to be used for supporting a website where user ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

, 97% of 128 critics' reviews of the film are positive, with an average score of 8.2/10; the site's "critics consensus" reads: "''The Truffle Hunters'' explores a world most viewers will know nothing about – with delightfully savory results." On

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, the film has a

weighted average The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...

score of 85 out of 100 based on reviews by 24 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Truffle Hunters, The 2020 films American documentary films Greek documentary films Italian documentary films Sony Pictures Classics films 2020 documentary films Films postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic 2020s American films Truffles (fungi) Documentary films about Italy Documentary films about food and drink Frenesy Film Company films