join us for a ride into akiva’s world…
The Train Hunter is a nonsense comedy about the domestication of the commuter train thirty thousand years ago - a time when trains were terrifying unrailed metal beasts which rocketed across the desert like wild horses.
Like anything they don’t understand, the early humans fear the trains but Akiva (13) is different. While on his first mammoth hunt, the hunting party has a close call with a wild train which leaves him obsessively curious about it.
Where does this awesome beast come from?
What does it eat?
How many are there?
After absent-minded Akiva accidentally ruins the hunt, his father Kalim (35), the strict and dutiful hunt leader, reminds him of his tribal responsibility as Mammoths are dwindling in the big valley. That night, however, Akiva’s imagination gets the best of him as he is caught drawing himself riding on a train. The strict chief Alila (60) declares Akiva a useless tribe member and banishes him from the village. Akiva begs for another chance but his father can’t help his wayward son.
Trudging through the desert on the verge of death, Akiva comes across a wild train stuck in a mammoth trap. He uses tree roots and branches to improvise a rail and frees the train. The two bond, and Akiva’s dream comes true as he rides the train far beyond the Big Valley, where he discovers a bountiful New Valley.
Years later, Akiva (now 18) has gone native and made his own tribe with the wild trains, but he still hurts from being cast out of the hunters tribe. One day, while riding his train through the big valley, he encounters his father on a hunt with young hunters. Still sour at his dad, Akiva taunts the hungry hunters with his fresh fruit from the neighboring valley, but when his train breaks down, Akiva realizes he still needs the tribe, and they need him, to survive. When asked where the fruit came from, Akiva gets an idea.
We fast forward once more to see Akiva’s train riding on a rail system of heavy tree roots and vines, making the first ever commuter ride from the hunters’ village to the neighboring valley, where the hunters exit the train and hunt mammoths. The Train Hunter is presented in the style of a BBC nature film, punctuated with fictitious artifacts and narrated by a dramatic, pompous presenter, but at heart it is the story of an outsider who finds his way back to his tribe and changes its world.
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