The Hunting Party Movie Trailer. In late 2005 Shepard retraced the steps of Scott Anderson and his colleagues. He flew to Sarajevo, stayed at the Holiday Inn (the war-time base for reporters) and journeyed north towards the village of Celebici, hard by the border with Montenegro.
This region was sympathetic to Radovan Karadicz and was reputedly the place where the war criminal was holed up in 2000. “In other words I basically went hunting for Karadicz,” says Shepard. “Being in Bosnia and experiencing it in the way that those journalists did, I suddenly saw the movie.
Very quickly Shepard got the lay of the land. He spoke with members of the UN, war journalists and survivors of the conflict in the Balkans. Then, using Scott Anderson’s article as the kick-off point, he started writing his screenplay. This was not going to be a history lesson or a political treatise: this was a story of three characters in search of themselves, a road movie set against the backdrop of a country still reeling from the aftermath of a bloody war.
“What happened in Bosnia was terrible and you cannot gloss over the tragedy. But in terms of my writing the movie, I took certain liberties,” he says. “I created all new characters and fictionalized some details to tell the story that I wanted to tell, but what happened to those guys is all in there. I mostly just created the characters because the five journalists in real life are all about the same age and have very similar personalities. I wanted to have three different age groups – an older, a younger and a middle person – with all of them going through their own personal journey through the course of the movie.”
In The Hunting Party, the post-war landscape and situation provides the backdrop and dramatic context for the character-driven story (somewhat similar to the Iraq-based buddy movie Three Kings). “A good screenplay for me always comes down to character,” says Mark Johnson. There were three significantly strong characters in the movie, each one in search of something. Years ago I did Good Morning Vietnam with Robin Williams which was the first film to deal with Vietnam in that comic way. It was a very funny film and no one, not even the veterans, thought it was disrespectful. I think that is similar to what we have done here. This is a very sly comedy and yet there are moments in this film that are extremely heartbreaking.”
The Journalists’ Reaction
“I thought the script was terrific,” says Anderson. “Whenever you take a magazine article or book or whatever and turn it into a script it’s going to be a very different thing but I think that Richard Shepard captured a lot of the absurdity of what we experienced in real life when we were on that story.
“Shepard also injected a lot of drama into the story and in some way many aspects of the whole Balkan conflict are in there,” says Philippe Deprez. “This screenplay is very well written and imagined.
“When I first read the screenplay I laughed out loud,” says John Falk. “I got that screenplay on the first go and I really enjoyed it. I tried to write a screenplay once so I know what a bad one looks like, as Richard’s screenplay was the direct opposite to mine – I considered it really good.”
On Location
At this stage Adam Merims, executive producer of The Matador, was also on board. He had previously worked with Scott Kroopf on BREACH. He joined the team in May 2006 and was part of the crucial decision as to where The Hunting Party would be filmed.
The filmakers considered all the logical Eastern European locations including the Czech Republic, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania. But from early on a decision was made that the film would be shot in Bosnia and Croatia. For Shepard and the producers this was vital to preserve the authencity of the screenplay. Sarajevo bookends the film, while the rest of this road movie travels through the countryside close to the Croatian capital, Zagreb.
“We felt that because the story is set in the former Yugoslav Republic we wanted to shoot the film there,” says Merims. “Obviously the beginning and end of the film had to be shot in Sarajevo, an amazing place that you can’t replicate anywhere else. But the rest of the film is set in rural Bosnia where there is no film infrastructure. So we based ourselves in Zagreb, where there is an existing film community and some support, and from there we sourced our locations which are all within an hour and a half radius of the city.”
After visiting the Balkans, there was no doubt in Richard Shepard’s mind that this was the only place that he could shoot the picture. He was, in the words of Kroopf, “pretty fired up”. Both Kroopf and Johnson considered the options. Michael Winterbottom had shot Welcome to Sarajevo in the city not long after the war so they figured the situation should be very safe in 2006. But there were still some anxious moments.
“We were nervous about shooting in Bosnia,” says Scott Kroopf. “The war was not that long ago and we were aware the people there could still be very sensitive or angry about the conflict. To our surprise it was really easy to shoot there. The people were incredibly polite. Maybe the story of this movie and the idea that it’s bringing this war to light meant something to the people. We got so much cooperation and good spirit from the locals in Sarajevo. The same thing has held true for Croatia. Maybe there’s a little less infrastructure for film making but that didn’t cost us any time at all.”
With Shepard as writer/director and Richard Gere and Terence Howard confirmed as principals, Intermedia struck a deal with QED International to sell the movie internationally. The company had been recently set up by Bill Block, an old friend of Scott Kroopf. “When I read the screenplay I was immediately hooked,” says Block.
“The Hunting Party with its mixture of human drama, comedy and adventure was just the type of project that QED International was looking for. With stars of the international calibre of Richard Gere and Terrence Howard attached it would have an immediate international appeal.” Thus Bill Block was able to generate the lion’s share of the financing through international sales. Then Intermedia approached the Weinstein Company to be the distributors for the domestic market. “They had distributed The Matador and were gigantic fans of Richard Shepard,” says Scott Kroopf. “They had been diligently tracking this project in the hope that it might fall their way. They swooped and we had our movie all put together.”
So the scene was set. A nine week shoot based in Sarajevo and in Zagreb, a cast to die for and a bristling and original screenplay. “I write movies about people and The Hunting Party is ultimately a movie about redemption,” says Shepard. “Richard Gere plays a character whose career fell apart during the war and he has suffered emotionally and professionally since then. He gets a tip about where this war criminal is hiding and this journey is really a journey of redemption for him. Terrence’s character sold out and went the opposite way so his story is really about finding his true self again. And Jesse is a kid who thinks he knows everything but really knows nothing and eventually he becomes a man. The backdrop is post-war Bosnia but the movie is really about these three people, the journey they go through and their experience.”
The Hunting Party (2007)
Directed by: Richard Shepard
Starring: Richard Gere, Terrence Howard, Jesse Eisenberg, James Brolin, Diane Kruger, Joy Bryant, Kristina Krepela, Lejla Hadzimuratovic, Olja Hrustic, Harald Doornbos
Screenplay by: Richard Shepard
Production Design by: Jan Roelfs
Cinematography by: David Tattersall
Film Editing by: Carole Kravetz Aykanian
Costume Design by: Beatrix Aruna Pasztor
Set Decoration by: Anuradha Mehta
Art Direction by: Mario Ivezic
Music by: Rolfe Kent
MPAA Rating: R for strong language and some violent content.
Distributed by: The Weinstein Company
Release Date: September 7, 2007
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