Hunting Pignut

Multi Award winning director/writer/editor Martine Blue knows Hunting Pignut's world of anarchistic punk rockers because she lived it. She knows the music, politics, personalities, scents, textures, dreams and disappointments of this distinctive subculture from the inside out. Many of the scenes from Hunting Pignut are based on her own life experiences.

She was first introduced to the scene when she was 24 and was immediately drawn to the spontaneity, danger, ideology, adventure, eclectic aesthetic, travel and challenge of fitting in with these intriguing characters. She moved to The Lower East Side of New York City and was soon invited to live in C-Squat, the most notoriously hardcore squat in the world. She lived in her squat room for ten years but also traveled extensively throughout Canada, the United States, Mexico and Europe during that time. While traveling she stayed in friend’s squats, abandoned boats, rooftops, in caves and many other unique temporary homes. She got around by hopping trains and hitchhiking and ate by dumpster diving food. For money she squeegeed car windshields, panhandled, worked as a dominatrix and busked by tap dancing in the street and in subway stations for money.

The idea of living on the edge of society greatly appealed to her and she discovered a strong sense of art beneath the tattered filth and squalor. Art that she found more expressive, creative and truthful than the expensive art in the high-end Soho art galleries that she and her friends crashed bi-weekly for free wine and snacks. As an only child, and generally an introverted writer and reader, the gutter punk world offered her the sense of belonging and community that she longed for her whole life. Excessive drinking and drugs generated easy and fast friendships and her buddies became the extended family she always dreamed of having. Highlights of this lifestyle include dress up parties, naked races, drunken baseball, foursquare games, sneaking into the neighboring pool, bleaching hair in the fire hydrant and protesting various causes. Martine remembers these years as challenging but also incredibly free, reckless, joyous and extraordinary enough to turn into a compelling film.

Martine returned home from her nomadic squatting lifestyle to enjoy the last two years of her father’s life. He passed away from alcoholism and lung disease in 2004, leaving Martine to feel that their relationship was unfinished. In grief and confusion, Martine searched for both tangible and mystical signs of love from her father. The themes of untimely loss, loneliness and guilt permeate Hunting Pignut as Martine explores the emotional repercussions of discovering a father’s love after his death.

Now over a decade later Martine lives a world away in a tiny seaside community of rural Newfoundland. Her former work as a freelance video journalist for Canada's national broadcaster gave her an insight into the character of that unique and engaging culture.

Martine brings these divergent worlds together in Hunting Pignut, striving to depict both with an authentic voice.

Hunting Pignut, her first feature film, is touring the film festival circuit as is her dramatic fantasy short, The Perfect Family. Martine is currently working on turning The Perfect Family into a dramatic cable TV series for young adults, as well as developing a digital TV series.