In Wadi Rum, thunderstorms are powerful. They only occur in the early months of the year. The sky is darkened with clouds, the rumble of thunder is constant, and heavy rain sends waterfalls cascading down the sandstone cliffs. The next day, the desert valleys are filled with blue flowers and green plants called “rhalla”. And in valleys where there has been lightning, families go looking for truffles. 

This is quite a different picture than most people have of truffle hunting. In Croatia, at first glance, the picture may be somewhat more familiar: the wet trees, the dark earth, the dogs (or sometimes pigs), and the unmistakable scent. Yet the true truffle hunting happens in secret: in the dead of night, up forested mountains or into deep canyons, to locations and trees that only a truffle hunter knows. Because a truffle is a treasure; one beyond monetary value.

With Truffle Hunter, we are taking a subject that would typically be shown in documentary and treating it as a genre adventure film. It’s a story about families and cultures coming together around food – one of the areas in life where our differences are essential, and compliment each other rather than divide us. Yet Truffle Hunter’s themes run deeper than that. It is a story about traditional ways of life coming in contact with a globalized, and increasingly artificial world. A world where the efficiency and necessity of mass production challenges the soul of the hand-created. How should one move forward in this new world? What is healthy to hold on to, what to let go of, and what to fight for?

A truffle is only too fitting a thing through which to explore these questions. That mysterious fungi growing amid the roots of trees defies commodification by its very nature, just as it defies scientific explanation. You cannot farm them; you have to go looking for them. They are not eternal; each one is unique, and will never come again. They are small, dirty, and odd to look at. Yet what a truffle does to a dish of food is indescribable.

In Truffle Hunter our heroes set out on a journey in search of a lost species of desert truffle. If they fail, it will mean the loss of their communities to an automated chain restaurant which will mass produce this ingredient. Along the way they must overcome apathy, fears, and industry, not to mention the forces of nature. But throughout all these adventures runs the metaphor which I do not think will be lost on the audience: every person has worth. Every person is a mystery, and of immeasurable value.