Dweck and Kershaw’s skill is in never needing to voice these economic considerations directly. It’s a complex picture that Dweck and Kershaw navigate with respect, curiosity and a sense of awe, managing to excavate the essence of a tight-knit, lovably atypical commune out of it.

We don’t learn too much about their individual lives—no one directly addresses the camera or explains how they got into truffle hunting. Buried underneath the picture (and vaguely hinted at by the filmmakers) is also a sharp divergence in socioeconomic class between the hunters and their increasingly scarce product’s end users, who pay a small fortune to enjoy shaved truffles in fancy restaurants. However, unlike “Honeyland” — which employs a more spur-of-the-moment and fluid mode to trace the life of its central heroine — “The Truffle Hunters” goes for a studious and staccato method. While in America we frequently see the death of a livelihood due to outsourcing or automation, in the world of The Truffle Hunters, the problem boils down to basic supply and demand. Deep in the forests of Piedmont, Italy, a handful of men, seventy or eighty years young, hunt for the rare and expensive white Alba truffle-which to date has resisted all of modern science's efforts at cultivation. “Gregory and I are both curious about communities that are steeped in tradition and communities that haven’t been that affected with the pull of the modern world,” said Dweck, during a Q&A as part of the International Documentary Association’s annual screening series. “We had to become friends with them and gain their trust. Like its elderly truffle hunters, you’ll find yourself wrapped up in the experience, and a little sad when it’s all over. If you removed all of the social commentary from Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw’s charming and thoughtful documentary The Truffle Hunters, you’d have an oddly serene picture about old Italian men and their dogs digging for truffles.

A truffle broker sets up a sale with another man on a street corner as if he is doing a drug deal. The acclaimed Italian director behind “Call Me By Your Name” and the recent series “We Are Who We Are” is the proud owner of a truffle dog, Romagnolo, and was interested in the subject because he bought a piece of land in a truffle region. All rights reserved. But as others seek truffles, the land becomes scarcer, and the tactics become more cutthroat to the point of poisoning truffle dogs as a way to dissuade these men from continuing their work. The bond between them was so profound, that the hunters developed a special language with their dogs. A scrumptious, melancholic cinematic journey into the storied world of truffle hunters in Northern Italy that serenades the eyes and appeals to sophisticated taste buds. This unblinking and mannered approach births a certain unavoidable artificiality: The subjects often seem aware of the presence of a camera and they sure aim to please it. From there is where it gets messy as the truffle trade can be costly, and yet it’s all for the benefit of the wealthy. Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! In its brief runtime, The Truffle Hunters tackles some weighty concepts with a featherlight touch.

After they finished editing their previous feature “The Last Race,” directors Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw decided to take separate trips with their families to decompress. Sign up for our Email Newsletters here. There’s also the tireless and talkative Sergio, who veers into the woods daily with his two gifted sniffers Pepe and Fiona. In addition to getting to know the human hunters, the filmmakers wanted to bring the audience into the dogs’ perspective. COLLIDER participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means COLLIDER gets paid commissions on purchases made through our links to retailer sites. No one wanted to talk to them about the truffle hunters.