The lives of creative people often seem interesting, exciting, or even glamorous. And sometimes, that’s true. But often, they lead lives as simple as our own – except for those moments when they pursue what’s in their hearts and minds that causes them to reach for the unusual – or even something that may seem or be dangerous. This is the case for the documentary director Xander Robin.
As a teenager growing up in South Florida (Delray Beach), Robin said, “I think when I was younger, I switched what I wanted to do every six months. I was really into skateboarding, and bought a camera to video the skateboarding. I was about 15, but I was skateboarding in my driveway, cause I wasn’t brave enough to go really fast,” he said. So he filmed other kids skateboarding in the park and other places.
Filming piqued his interest, and he began watching Stanley Kubrick and Charlie Chaplin movies. “I switched pretty fast into film after that,” he said. “Once I got the camera, I started getting more obsessed with that side of things. I love music…and film is a combination of all the things I love,” he added. “I met a lot of friends that showed me that whole subculture…a little group of friends in high school that fueled this, and we’d all see films together.”
Cats and lizards and snakes, oh my!
That humble teenage beginning leads us to Robin’s current entry in the Tallahassee Film Festival, which takes place in various venues from Sept. 26-28. Robin’s movie, “The Python Hunt,” which he produced and directed, chronicles the annual Florida Python Challenge.
The event is a 10-day competition hosted by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission in its efforts to remove dangerous Burmese pythons from the Florida Everglades. The documentary screens at 4 p.m. Sept. 27.
Becoming a self-producing director wasn’t an easy transition from working for production companies in New York City. Robin and fellow student, Matthew Clegg, moved to New York together in 2012, after graduating from Florida State University’s (FSU) College of Motion Picture Arts in December 2011.
He had some success working as a director for hire at several production companies, and on an HBO film that allowed him to travel with music rappers to exotic and picturesque outdoor locations like the Mojave Desert.
But it was his low-budget short film, Lance Lizardi, written in 2016 while visiting his parents in Florida, that seems to have set him on his reptile quest. It’s about a young man so obsessed with lizards that he changes his last name to Lizardi. That film, and his 2015 feature film, “Are We Not Cats,” were both on the film festival circuit.
“The Tallahassee Film Festival wasn’t even a thing when I was there (at FSU),” Robin said. “Film festivals attract folks who want to go to the movies, and I’m excited to be in Tallahassee and play the movie. I don’t think any other festival does the IMAX (theater). I hope some (FSU) students and instructors come. I have such fond memories of being there,” he said.
For the love of Florida and FSU
“I made a decision that I wanted to make more films in Florida,” Robin said. “It was more freeing for me. It was the next thing I wanted to pursue.” Robin was actually trying to do another scripted film about reptiles in Florida when a friend suggested he do a documentary about the Florida Python Challenge.
He credits his coursework at FSU with giving him the foundation for documentary work. “In school, I never really wanted to make a documentary,” Robin said. But he was able to interest more people in the Florida Python Challenge than in the scripts he wrote, so he decided to make it his own.
“Having that be part of the curriculum for undergrads is what’s great about a documentary,” Robin says of his filmmaker training at FSU. “Out of all the films I made in college, the documentary had the broadest appeal. It was the only project I could really share with my extended family.”
For their school projects in 2010, Robin and two classmates (Adam Carboni and Taylor Cohan) worked together on each other’s documentaries, taking turns as cinematographer, sound recordist, and director.
Robin acknowledges that the world was such a different place then. For his part, the three 20-year-olds got a map from Triple AAA and drove 15 hours to Parsons, Kansas, to produce a documentary about Dwayne’s Lab. It was the only photo lab in the world that was still developing Kodachrome film.
“The first time I had teachers who inspired me was at FSU,” Robin said. Current faculty professor, Valerie Scoon, was one of Robin’s college instructors, as was internationally-famous filmmaker Victor Nunez. Nunez’s teaching and his films are still a huge influence on Robin’s love of filmmaking.
“When I was there, I thought it was so cool that alums brought their films to share with the students,” he said. “You can learn so much from hearing what someone has gone through in the professional world,” Robin added.
He believes former students can give some actionable advice because the film industry changes so quickly. He plans to do his part to give back, too. Sabrina Reisinger, FSU’s Assistant Dean of the College of Motion Picture Arts, confirmed that Robin is scheduled to return to FSU for the Spring 2026 semester to share his film and industry experience with current film school students.
Hanging out with snakes
“In 2022, I joined the (Florida Python) Challenge and decided to do a film on it,” Robin said. About 1,000 people, mostly amateurs, entered the challenge that year. The film focuses on the amateurs, who rarely caught any pythons, but had three film crews following every person for the entire 10 days.
“The film is informative and focuses on the reasons amateurs want to be involved,” he said. The movie is mainly for people who aren’t familiar with the challenge. It features lots of characters, including “Ms Ann” – an 82-year-old retired widow who lives in an assisted living facility in South Florida. Her guide, Toby Benoit, an experienced hunting guide and outdoor events writer, is also featured.
Robin shared that the python hunting is done in the summer, at night, and in an area full of mosquitoes, chiggers, and all kinds of other things. “Toby would go out and stay out. I’m a night owl, so it was fun for me,” Robin states, though he admits the bugs were pretty crazy.
“The snakes have a presence in the film, almost like a character,” he added. “In a way, showing them [helps] you become less afraid of them,” he believes. He feels more comfortable being around snakes now. (Even though he admits someone was bitten during the event.)
Though many people might not view snakes or even lizards as creatures they would want to be up close and personal with, you may enjoy spending an hour and a half watching on the big screen to get a better understanding of them.
After all, Robin says, “Documentaries are an excuse to experience the world. You do things you wouldn’t otherwise do.”
If you go
What: Tallahassee Film Festival | 80 films over three days across 6 screens
When: Sept. 26-28, Friday through Sunday
Where: Challenger Learning Center, 200 South Duval Street; IMAX Theater, Room B, and Fogg Planetarium
Capital City Video Lounge: 636-1 Railroad Square; RR Square Arts District, Fantômas Theater
621 Gallery: 625 Railroad Square, RR Square Arts District
Kleman Plaza (on the Green) 306 South Duval Street (behind City Hall)
Cost: Individual movie tickets, $15; all-access festival pass, $55; VIP pass, $99. (Free at Kleman Plaza on Sept. 27)
Movie: “The Python Hunt,” 4-5:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 27, Challenger Learning Center, IMAX Theater, $15.
Details: tallahasseefilmfestival.com; info@tallahasseefilmfestival.com
Priscilla Hawkins is a guest writer for the Council on Culture & Arts (COCA) and founder & creative director of Black History Alliance. Celebrating its 40th anniversary, COCA is the capital area’s umbrella agency for arts and culture (tallahasseearts.org).
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: The road to filmmaking was on a skateboard: A preview of Tallahassee Film Festival
Reporting by Priscilla Hawkins / Tallahassee Democrat
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