11 minutes to make you question everything you thought you knew about Florida Man.
Considered a staple of Florida tourism, alligator wrestling has been performed by members of the Seminole Tribe for over a century. As the practice has changed over the years, Halpate profiles the hazards and history of the spectacle through the words of the tribe's alligator wrestlers themselves and what it has meant to their people's survival.
Direction
Khalil and Piron let wrestlers speak, never exoticize.
Editing
Tight 11 minutes that trusts your intelligence.
Director
Adam Piron
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The film is part of New Red Order, an Indigenous artist collective that weaponizes documentary form against colonial gaze.
Halpate means 'alligator' in Mikasuki language—titling it thus reclaims the practice from English spectacle-language.
US
