In southern Alabama, five men prepare a hog to be butchered. Under a tree, and the watchful eye of their experienced colleague, Johnny Blackmon, they take part in a laborious series of steps to ready the animal. The texture of this involved work is evident throughout the cinematography and soundscape. Steam drifts in the wind from a hissing cauldron of boiling water. A knife blade scrapes against coarse hair as thorough hands separate pelt from skin. The care with which they approach the animal, and each other, underscores the ritual of this time-honored undertaking, in which the spoken, and unspoken, interactions that take place among them are an essential part of the ceremony.  ST

Filmmaker Q&A following screening